-  x>:x>oco::.;x>;xx.< 
II.     BATES. 

i 


THE  MAN 
SHAKESPEARE 

AND  OTHER  ESSAYS  BY 
CATHARINE  MERRILL 

WITH  IMPRESSIONS  AND 
REMINISCENCES  OF  THE 
AUTHOR  BY  MELVILLE 
B.  ANDERSON,  AND  WITH 
SOME  WORDS  OF  APPRE- 
CIATION FROM  JOHNMUIR 


THE  BOWEN-MERRILL  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS,  INDIANAPOLIS 


COPYRIGHT  1902 
THE  BOWEN-MERRILL  COMPANY 


<^-  THESE  ESSAYS  HAVE  BEEN  GATHERED 
TOGETHER  BY  THE  CATHARINE  MERRILL 
CLUB  IN  GRATEFUL  AND  LOVING  MEMORY 
OF  HER  WHOSE  NAME  THE  CLUB  BEARS. 


CONTENTS 

Catharine  Merrill  Page 

BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTICE  1 

IMPRESSIONS  AMD  REMINISCENCES. 

MELVILLE  B.  ANDERSON  6 

WORDS  FROM  AN  OLD  FRIEND.  JOHNMUIR  32 
The  Man  Shakespeare  and  Other  Essays 

THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AS  REVEALED  IN 

His  WORKS  41 

INDIANAPOLIS  IN  WAR  TIME  66 

THE  RAINBOW.     A  MEMORY  90 

LITERARY  CRITICISM  92 
PERSONAL  LITERATURE  OF  THE  VICTORIAN 

A<;K  114 

JOHN  FOSTER  123 

THE  CHILD  IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  134 

THE  GENERAL  ;  A  CHARACTER  SKETCH  158 

MARTYRS  TO  FAITH  162 

SOME  THOUGHTS  ABOUT  SOCIETY  195 


CATHARINE  MERRILL 


BIOGRAPHICAL    NOTICE 

Catharine  Merrill  was  born  at  Corydon,  In- 
diana, on  January  24,  1824.  Her  father,  Sam- 
uel Merrill,  was  Treasurer  of  State,  and  a  few 
months  later,  when  he  removed  the  treasury  to 
the  new  capital,  Indianapolis,  he  took  with  him 
to  their  new  home  in  the  wilderness  his  house- 
hold, including  his  little  daughter. 

The  father,  Samuel  Merrill,  was  a  scholarly 
man,  educated  at  Dartmouth  College,  and  a 
classmate  and  friend  of  Thaddeus  Stevens.  He 
came  of  Vermont  Puritan  stock,  and  his  marked 
Puritan  traits  of  honesty  and  reverence  for  re- 
ligion he  transmitted  to  his  daughter.  One  of 
his  strongest  characteristics  was  a  love  for  books 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

that  amounted  almost  to  a  passion.  It  was  nat- 
ural that  Samuel  Merrill  should  add  to  his  du- 
ties as  Treasurer  of  State  the  congenial  task  of 
instructing  the  younger  folk,  for  whose  educa- 
tion the  new  community  had  made  no  provision. 
He  was  the  pioneer  schoolmaster,  and  his  home 
library  became  a  veritable  circulating  library 
for  the  use  of  pupils  and  neighbors.  Mr.  Mer- 
rill's first  school  was  held  in  his  own  house  near 
the  site  of  the  Grand  Hotel.  Later  he  bought 
an  eighty-acre  farm,  extending  from  what  is 
now  Tenth  street,  near  the  City  Hospital,  to 
North  Indianapolis,  along  the  Michigan  road. 
Then  the  well-remembered  Merrill  home  was 
built  in  Merrill  street.  In  this  home  the  family 
lived  for  perhaps  forty  years.  Here  were  en- 
tertained many  of  the  distinguished  men  who 
visited  Indianapolis.  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
made  his  home  at  the  old  place  for  several 
months  until  a  permanent  home  could  be  found. 
Here,  during  antebellum  days,  Frederick  Doug- 
lass was  a  guest.  The  site  is  now  occupied  by 
a  public  school  known  as  the  Catharine  Merrill 
School. 
As  the  public  duties  of  the  father  multiplied, 

2 


BIOGRAPHICAL    NOTICE 

the  daughter,  who  had  been  his  favorite  pupil 
and  a  comrade  in  his  studies,  began  to  take  upon 
herself  the  training  of  the  minds  of  the  younger 
generation  in  the  little  town.  Her  pupils  of 
those  early  days  speak  of  that  school  as  an  ideal 
one.  The  children  belonged  to  the  friends  of 
the  teacher.  The  girls  were  put  upon  honor  in 
everything.  Nothing  was  so  severely  punished 
as  an  untruth.  With  the  love  in  which  her  pu- 
pils held  her  went  also  respect  that  knew  no 
fear.  Confident  of  her  sympathy,  they  took  to 
her  their  little  sorrows  and  their  trials. 

A  pupil  of  that  earlier  day,  recalling  the  little 
school,  has  said : 

"I  can  never  forget  the  prayer  she  lifted  up 
every  morning,  nor  her  reverent  reading  of  the 
Bible  lesson.  She  impressed  us  as  if  she  were 
speaking  to  some  great  and  good  friend  to  whom 
she  could  open  her  heart." 

Before  the  war  this  school  was  in  the  base- 
ment of  the  Fourth  Presbyterian  Church  at  the 
southwest  corner  of  Market  and  Delaware 
streets.  From  here  it  was  taken  to  a  point  near 
where  the  Commercial  Club  building  stands. 
Close  by  the  school  was  a  hospital  for  confeder- 

3 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

ate  prisoners.  Here  she  used  to  go  to  nurse 
the  sick  and  read  to  them.  Later  she  followed 
her  brother  and  others  of  the  family  to  the 
South  and  entered  into  the  hospital  service  as 
an  army  nurse.  A  later  location  for  her  school 
was  at  Alabama  and  Market  streets.  She  no- 
ticed the  women  in  the  jail  near  by  and  visited 
them,  giving  them  clothes  and  teaching  them  to 
sew.  From  the  interest  that  was  aroused  in  this 
way  was  started  the  Home  for  Friendless 
Women.  For  a  time  she  taught  at  Cleveland, 
whither  a  number  of  her  Indianapolis  pupils 
followed  her.  Miss  Guilford,  who  taught  there 
with  her,  became  her  lifelong  friend,  and  Con- 
stance Fennimore  Woolson  was  one  of  her  pu- 
pils. 

In  1861  she  returned  from  two  years  of  study 
in  Germany  to  lend  what  help  she  could  to  the 
cause  of  the  Union  and  to  take  up  again  the 
school  which  her  friend,  Ellen  Cathcart,  had 
so  well  conducted  in  her  absence.  The  Civil 
War  with  the  sacrifices  and  the  suffering  it 
caused  became  so  much  a  part  of  her  life 
that  she  commenced  to  write  a  history  of  the 
share  her  own  state  had  had  in  that  struggle, 

4 


BIOGRAPHICAL    NOTICE 

and  in  1866  she  published  "The  Soldier  of  In- 
diana in  the  War  for  the  Union." 

In  1869  Ovid  Butler,  the  chief  benefactor  of 
the  college  that  now  bears  his  name,  endowed 
the  Demia  Butler  chair  of  English  Literature, 
and  invited  her  to  fill  it.  She  accepted  the  call 
and  continued  in  the  faculty  of  the  Northwest- 
ern Christian  University  and  later  of  Butler 
College  until  1885,  when  she  yielded  to  the 
urgent  demand  of  old  and  new  pupils  and  re- 
sumed her  private  classes  in  the  city.  These 
classes  she  was  enabled  to  teach  until  April, 
1900.  In  her  college  work  she  was  always  help- 
ful, giving  herself  to  the  culture  of  character 
as  fully  as  to  the  training  of  the  intellect,  and 
allotting  to  honor  and  manliness  as  high  a  place 
in  the  curriculum  as  she  gave  to  scholarship. 
She  found  time  while  she  was  not  occupied  with 
her  classes  to  prepare  the  essays  and  addresses 
which  she  read  to  the  literary  clubs  and  popular 
audiences  of  her  own  and  other  cities,  and  a 
series  of  literary  criticisms  which  were  given  to 
the  press. 

After  a  brief  illness  she  died  at  her  home  in 
Capitol  Avenue  on  May  30,  1900. 

5 


CATHARINE    MERRILL:      IMPRESSIONS    AND     REMI- 
NISCENCES 

Whatever  may  be  the  value  of  the  pieces  col- 
lected in  the  present  volume,  the  reader  should 
be  assured  that  they  yield  no  adequate  concep- 
tion of  the  noble  personality  behind  them.  It 
is  true  that  all  writing  is  in  some  sense  a  reve- 
lation of  character;  and  in  proportion  as  the 
writer's  temperament  goes  into  his  work  is  that 
work  autobiographical.  But  Catharine  Merrill 
was  not  primarily  a  writer.  Her  favorite  mode 
of  self-expression  was  conversation,  and  her  life 
is  written  large  in  the  good  works  she  prompted 
or  performed.,  and  in  the  characters  of  her  pu- 
pils. Her  letters  must  bear  the  stamp  of  her 
temperament  much  more  distinctly  than  such 
occasional  writings  as  these.  There  is,  indeed, 
a  printed  book,  now  well-nigh  forgotten,  which 
is  a  precious  memorial  of  this  great,  modest 
soul.  It  may  surprise  some  who  thought  they 
knew  her  well  to  be  informed  that  she  was, 
more  than  a  generation  ago,  the  author  of  a 
book  of  fifteen  hundred  pages.  It  is  entitled 

6 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

"The  Soldier  of  Indiana  in  the  War  for  the 
Union/'  These  two  stout  octavo  volumes  do  not 
bear  the  author's  name,  and  one  might  have 
known  her  a  lifetime  without  hearing  her  men- 
tion them.  Into  this  work  she  threw  her  heart. 
She  was  impelled  to  write  it  by  the  same  mo- 
tive that  impelled  her  to  visit  the  sick,  to  com- 
fort the  afflicted,  to  teach  the  poor.  It  is  simply 
one  of  her  many  good  works. 

"The  Indiana  Soldier"  is  largely  a  record  of 
the  sacrifices  and  sufferings  of  individuals.  A 
thousand  minute  details,  of  a  kind  generally 
deemed  beneath  "the  dignity  of  history,"  are 
here  set  down.  The  book  is  full  of  trustworthy 
anecdotes  from  the  letters  or  the  lips  of  eye- 
witnesses. The  execution  is  unequal ;  there  are 
marks  of  haste,  yet  there  are  unmistakable  evi- 
dences of  talent.  Obviously,  the  modest  author 
was  not  actuated  by  literary  ambition.  Her  pur- 
pose was  the  humane  and  patriotic  one  of  com- 
memorating the  sacrifices  and  heroism  of  com- 
mon men  in  the  service  of  a  common  idea.  She 
is  a  humble  Plutarch,  or,  better,  a  Plutarch  of 
the  humble.  Much  of  the  matter  is  still  very 
stirring,  and  it  will  surely  grow  more  fascinat- 

7 


CATHARINE  MERRILL:  REMINISCENCES 

ing  from  the  touch  of  the  great  romancer,  Time. 
To  those  of  us  who  saw  her  only  in  the  latter 
half  of  her  life,  Miss  Merrill  is  known  as  the 
loving  student  and  devoted  teacher  of  English 
literature.  The  book  I  have  been  speaking  of 
suggests,  among  other  things,  how  broad  was 
the  basis  of  her  love  of  literature.  She  would 
have  shrunk  from  being  called  either  a  woman 
of  letters  or  a  philanthropist.  The  former  word 
suggests  professional  accomplishments  that 
were  beside  her  aim,  and  the  latter  a  certain 
strenuousness  that  would  have  shattered  her. 
She  was  very  far  from  being  an  organizer  of 
"movements"  or  a  trampler  of  platforms.  She 
cared  neither  to  agitate  nor  to  fulminate.  She 
was  simply  interested  in  folks,  and  that  in  a 
warm  human  fashion  that  was  more  convincing 
than  a  string  of  resolutions.  Goethe's  life 
maxim,  "do  the  thing  that  lies  nearest,"  was 
the  guide  of  her  conduct.  Her  way  to  and  from 
school,  in  the  earlier  days,  led  her  past  the  jail, 
where  she  saw  the  forlorn  faces  of  women  at 
the  barred  windows.  She  might  have  found  in 
her  full  and  laborious  life  an  excuse  for  going 
by  on  the  other  side.  It  must  have  cost  a  strug- 

8 


gle  to  a  woman  of  her  refinement  to  go  among 
those  poor  outcasts,  but  they  lay  beside  her 
path.  She  did  what  she  could  for  them.  Her 
similar  self-devotion  during  the  Civil  War 
is  recorded.  Indianapolis  was  then  a  great 
encampment,  a  hospital,  and  a  prison.  In 
her  efficient  unobtrusive  way,  Miss  Merrill  was 
a  leader  of  the  helpful  women  of  the  city;  a 
leader  rather  by  setting  the  rest  the  example 
of  doing  what  was  needful  than  by  talk  and 
exhortation.  Thus,  before  becoming  the  his- 
torian of  Indiana's  share  in  the  War  for  the 
Defense  of  the  Union,  she  had  taken  her  full 
part  in  the  great  struggle.  One  of  the  most 
valued  friendships  of  her  life  grew  out  of  her 
habit  of  visiting  the  sick  and  the  unfortunate. 
When  Mr.  John  Muir,  then  a  poor  and  unknown 
wanderer,  was  confined  for  months  to  a  dark 
room  by  a  cruel  accident  and  was  threatened 
with  total  blindness,  the  visits  of  Miss  Merrill 
and  her  little  niece  were  his  solace. 

Inasmuch  as  life  was  vastly  more  interesting 
to  her  than  books,  it  is  but  natural  that  she 
should  have  valued  literature  primarily  as  a 
"criticism  of  life."  To  her  mind  the  vital  books 

9 


CATHARINE  MERRILL:  REMINISCENCES 

were  not  so  much  the  most  beautiful  works  of 
art  as  those  which  tell  us  most  about  man  and 
are  the  most  helpful  in  the  art  of  right  living. 
After  the  great  dramatist  and  some  of  the  great 
novelists,  I  think  she  liked  best  the  memoirists 
and  letter-writers.  She  once  said,  almost  apolo- 
getically: "I  am  very  fond  of  this  gossiping 
sort  of  literature,  Miss  Edgeworth,  Caroline 
Lamb,  etc."  In  her  conversation  Miss  Merrill 
was  as  charming  a  gossip  as  any  of  them,  and 
she  had  all  the  natural  gifts  of  an  excellent 
letter-writer.  It  has  not  been  my  privilege  to 
see  any  of  the  letters  she  must  have  written  in 
that  period  of  her  life  which  fell  before  the 
Civil  War;  a  collection  of  them  might  prove  a 
revelation.  After  she  accepted  a  professorship 
she  must  have  been  too  busy  for  extended  let- 
ter-writing, and,  in  her  later  years,  which  were 
her  ripest  and  richest,  her  eyesight  well-nigh 
failed  her.  The  ideal  letter  is  the  product  of  a 
more  leisurely  age  than  ours.  It  must  have 
the  abandon  of  conversation,  modulated  by  a 
certain  selection  of  phrase  wherein  the  pen  has 
the  advantage  of  the  tongue.  The  modern 
toiler  to  whom  the  pen  is  an  instrument  of  live- 

10 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

lihood  is  forced  to  have  recourse  to  the  conven- 
tional forms  of  epistolary  short-hand. 

Of  course  one  who  gave  herself,  as  she  did, 
to  every  call  of  human  need,  must  have  had  to 
write  many  letters,  and  more  and  more  as  the 
circle  of  her  influence  and  of  her  friends  wid- 
ened. Her  letters  are  of  her  very  self,  abound- 
ing in  good  sense,  good  humor,  and  kindly 
sympathy.  Temperamentally  discursive,  she 
would  run  on  a  little  while,  and  then,  just  as 
her  soul  was  fairly  kindling  to  the  game,  would 
be  checked  by  "the  bars  of  circumstance."  To 
her  friends  at  a  distance  her  letters  were  al- 
ways a  little  touch  of  her  out  of  the  night. 
What  letters,  one  repeats,  she  must  have  written 
when  Indianapolis  was  a  village  and  the  de- 
mands upon  her  nerves  less  exacting. 

Conversation  was  the  solace  of  her  life;  in- 
deed, it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  her  conver- 
sation was  the  solace  of  many  lives.  When  not 
weighed  down  by  the  griefs  and  calamities  of 
those  about  her  (personal  ills  she  always  seemed 
to  carry  lightly),  she  was  one  of  the  most  com- 
panionable of  human  beings.  Her  mind  was 
full  and  retentive,  her  faculty  of  observation 

11 


CATHARINE  MERRILL:  REMINISCENCES 

quick,  her  sense  of  humor  quietly  alert,  while 
her  flow  of  thought  and  anecdote  was  never 
marred  by  inapt  expression.  By  no  means  was 
she  one  of  those  tiresome  women  commonly 
described  as  ''brilliant:"  one  who  bestrides  a 
hobby,  who  is  nothing  if  not  audacious,  and 
whose  epigrams  grate  like  a  file.  She  was  not 
militant,  she  never  posed,  and  had  not  the 
slightest  ambition  to  shine.  It  is  of  course 
impossible  to  give  any  notion  of  her  conversa- 
tion to  strangers.  She  impressed  those  with 
whom  she  talked  as  a  large-souled  woman,  with 
sanity,  sympathy,  humor,  the  gift  of  speech,  and 
the  rarer  gift  of  listening.  She  was  an  eloquent 
listener.  She  was  most  patient  with  her  in- 
feriors and  was  seldom  visibly  bored.  She  did 
not  share  that  form  of  social  cowardice  which 
makes  us  shrink  from  the  charge  of  the  rider  of 
a  hobby ;  but  she  would  not  permit  others  to  be 
overridden  by  such  cavalry.  She  was  a  skilful 
moderator  of  conversation  and  knew  how  to 
give  it  a  Democratic  character.  She  seemed  to 
learn  from  everyone,  because  she  had  the  tact 
to  draw  from  everyone  the  thing  he  knew.  In 
conversation,  as  in  life,  she  was  apt  to  consider 

12 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

the  interest  of  others  before  her  own;  indeed,  she 
made  everyone  feel  that  his  interests  were  hers. 
She  was  as  incapable  of  saying  an  unkind  thing 
as  of  saying  anything  not  in  good  taste.  The 
ignorant  and  the  timid  never  left  her  presence 
feeling  cowed  or  crushed.  Did  some  well-mean- 
ing person  falter  forth  a  commonplace,  Miss 
Merrill  would  contrive  to  throw  such  a  light 
upon  it  as  to  make  it  shine.  This  she  would 
do  with  such  courteous  self-effacement  that  her 
obscure  interlocutor  might  well  feel  somewhat 
exhilarated  by  the  distinguished  part  he  was 
playing.  Thus  she  drew  from  everyone  his 
best  and  gave  a  setting  to  many  a  rough  dia- 
mond. 

If  Miss  Merrill  was  a  charming  gossip,  no 
one  drew  more  firmly  the  line  between  gossip 
and  scandal.  From  scandal  her  pure  soul 
turned  with  loathing;  but  the  little  humors 
that  give  a  spice  of  comedy  to  human  inter- 
course were  her  delight.  There  was,  however, 
seldom  a  shade  of  satire — certainly  never  of 
sarcasm — in  anything  she  uttered.  She  had  a 
rare  tact  for  giving  a  kind  turn  to  her  fun. 
She  gave  the  impression  that  she  considered 

13 


CATHARINE  MERRILL:  REMINISCENCES 

herself  rather  more  open  to  ridicule  than  an- 
other. She  had  many  a  genial  reminiscence 
of  the  class-room.  In  one  of  her  letters  I 
find  the  following,  hastily  scribbled  in  a 
cramped  hand  at  the  foot  of  a  full  page:  "I 
had  my  freshmen  read  'Lycidas.'  After  they 
had  studied  and  studied  it,  one  said:  'What 
does  this  mean — Warbling  with  eager  thought 
his  Doric  lay'?  I  explained.  He  said:  'I 
thought  lay  was  a  verb — that  his  Doric  lay  on 
the  ground  beside  him.'  He  smiled  at  his  mis- 
take; so  did  I." 

After  that,  one  is  not  surprised  when  she 
remarks  that  this  class  preferred  "The  Vanity 
of  Human  Wishes"  to  "Lycidas."  There  was 
another  good  story,  which  I  am  unable  to  give 
in  her  own  words,  of  a  full-grown  young  man 
from  the  forests  of  the  Wabash  who  stumbled 
over  the  word  infant.  He  professed  not  to 
understand  the  word,  and  "allowed"  that  he 
had  never  seen  the  thing.  "Surely,  Mr.  N.," 
urged  the  teacher  reassuringly,  "surely,  you 
must  have  seen  an  infant  ?"  "I  may  have  saw 
one,  ma'am,"  he  conceded,  "but,"  he  added 
with  solemn  conviction,  "I  didn't  know  it!" 

14 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

Our  kindly  friend  might  have  adopted  the 
motto  of  the  old  Roman  poet,  "Nothing  human 
is  alien  to  me."  Her  mind  had  something  of 
the  alchemy  attributed  to  the  great  poets,  by 
virtue  of  which  trifles  become  things  of  price. 
This  was  because  her  vision  of  human  life  was 
so  large  that  she  saw  the  filiation  of  things. 
What  to  the  man  of  narrow  view  might  seem 
nugatory  was  seen  by  her  to  be  related  to  some 
phase  of  human  experience. 

Miss  Merrill's  conversation  bore  the  stamp  of 
her  simplicity  and  strong  sincerity.  She  dealt 
in  no  tricks  of  phrase,  nor  did  her  speech  es- 
pecially abound  in  striking  or  quotable  sayings. 
The  original  element  in  her  conversation  was 
herself  rather  than  her  phrase.  She  used  to 
complain  of  a  defective  verbal  memory  and 
made,  perhaps,  fewer  literary  quotations  than 
might  have  been  expected.  Any  want  of  mem- 
ory for  words  was,  however,  more  than  com- 
pensated by  her  remarkable  memory  for 
thoughts  and  things.  Her  speech  had  a  certain 
elemental  plainness,  like  water  and  air.  She 
seemed  to  draw  from  copious  wells  of  her  own 
rather  than  from  the  fountain  in  the  public 

15 


CATHARINE  MERRILL:  REMINISCENCES 

square.  One  felt  that  she  spoke  of  what  she 
had  seen  and  known,  rather  than  of  what  she 
had  heard  and  read.  Her  reading  was  a  fuel 
perfectly  consumed;  it  did  not  go  in  as  coal 
and  come  out  as  smoke.  Books  were  not  so 
much  the  tools  with  which  she  worked  as  the 
food  wherewith  she  satisfied  her  hunger.  The 
scholar  requires  eternal  vigilance  lest  for  him 
books  take  the  place  of  thought — nay,  of  life 
itself.  That  vigilance  relaxed,  the  scholar  de- 
generates into  the  pedant.  To  our  friend  books 
were  a  daily  necessity  of  the  mind,  but  she  had 
the  wisdom  and  strength  to  make  them  tribu- 
tary to  clear  thinking  and  right  living. 

Catharine  Merrill's  fine,  wide  culture  offers 
the  most  signal  and  cheering  example  of  the 
educative  power  of  English  literature.  No  one 
could  talk  with  her  for  half  an  hour  without 
feeling  that  her  culture  was  liberal;  yet  she 
was  not  widely  read  in  the  literature  of  any 
language  except  her  own.  She  was  habitually 
reticent  concerning  her  accomplishments,  and 
she  doubtless  owed  something  of  her  discipline 
of  mind  to  her  early  linguistic  training  as  well 
as  to  her  considerable  acquaintance  with  Ger- 

16 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

man.  I  can,  however,  be  doing  her  no  great 
wrong  in  assuming  that  all  that  was  most  val- 
uable in  her  literary  equipment  was  derived 
from  her  reading  of  English  authors.  As  all 
rivers  flow  into  the  sea,  so  all  literatures  con- 
tribute to  enrich  the  English.  One  who  knows 
it  well  must  know  something  of  all.  Certainly 
her  knowledge  of  English  literature  was  ac- 
complishment enough  for  one  life,  and  for 
genuine  culture  worth  more  than  all  that  col- 
leges and  universities  can  give.  Of  robust 
faculty  and  enquiring  mind,  she  was  early 
introduced  to  the  best  books  by  her  cultivated 
father,  and  her  reading  was  supplemented  by 
fruitful  and  well-directed  activity  seldom  so 
absorbing  as  to  preclude  leisure  for  study.  She 
always  felt  her  limitations  more  keenly  than 
was  need.  Speaking  of  reading  Dante,  she 
writes : 

"I  feel  actually  ashamed  to  end  my  life  with- 
out it ;  but  then  I  can't  read  Homer,  nor  trace 
the  footsteps  of  the  Creator  in  the  rocks,  neither 
could  I  talk  with  Solomon,  if  I  should  ever 
meet  with  him,  of  the  flowers  of  the  field  and 
the  hyssop  on  the  wall !" 

17 


CATHARINE  MERRILL:  REMINISCENCES 

If  she  be  to-day  with  the  spirits  of  Dante 
and  Homer  and  Solomon,  one  may  fancy  her  as 
having  quite  as  much  in  common  with  each  of 
them  as  they  with  one  another;  at  all  events, 
one  cannot  doubt  that  the  creator  of  Portia  and 
Imogen  will  find  a  charm  in  the  society  of 
Catharine  Merrill.  I  like  to  think  of  her  as 
bringing  together  in  the  gardens  of  Elysium 
such  stranger  spirits  as  those  of  Mme.  de  Se- 
vigne  and  Wordsworth — herself  the  discoverer 
of  a  common  bond. 

The  literary  preferences  of  a  wise  reader  are 
always  instructive.  She  once  said  to  me  that 
she  had  read  the  whole  of  Scott  a  great  number 
of  times,  how  many  I  dare  not  affirm.  Had 
it  been  twice,  the  statement  would  have  been 
impressive  to  one  who  had  found  life  too  short 
for  a  single  reading  of  the  complete  works  of 
that  great  but  diffuse  author.  As  her  fondness 
for  Scott  implies,  her  interest  in  life  and  char- 
acter predominated  over  her  sense  of  art.  This 
may  account  for  her  apparent  lack  of  literary 
ambition.  With  the  temperament  of  the  artist 
she  might  have  enriched  our  literature  and  so 
have  exerted  a  wider  influence;  but  could  she 

18 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

have  been  as  balanced  and  sane  as  we  knew 
her  to  be  ?  However,  we  may  answer  that  ques- 
tion, no  one  who  knew  her  can  for  a  moment 
regret  that  she  was  not  a  literary  producer,  or 
anything  else  than  what  she  was. 

She  loved  the  serene,  humane,  liberalizing 
writers;  Shakespeare  was  naturally  her  prime 
favorite.  Once  she  wrote :  "I  have  re-read  the 
whole  of  Shakespeare  this  summer  for  variety 
and  novelty."  Again:  "I  am  studying  Burke 
this  summer,  and  love  him.  The  largeness,  the 
magnanimity  of  his  nature  makes  one  lift  one's 
eyes  and  hopes.  Eeal  greatness  is  inexpressibly 
refreshing." 

Goethe,  unfortunately,  never  took  hold  of 
her  so  vitally ;  probably  she  did  not  begin  Ger- 
man early  enough  to  be  able  to  read  him  in  her 
more  plastic  years.  Of  noteworthy  American 
authors,  Poe  interested  her  least;  nor  was 
Emerson  especially  stimulating  to  her.  Her 
preference  for  Wordsworth  was  marked;  I 
think  she  would  have  been  willing  to  sacrifice 
all  that  Keats  ever  wrote  for  the  "Ode  to 
Duty."  To  carry  this  subject  further  would  be 
likely  to  lead  to  confusion,  inasmuch  as  the 

19 


CATHARINE  MERRILL:  REMINISCENCES 

conversations  with  her  in  which  these  prefer- 
ences were  exhibited  occurred  many  years  be- 
fore her  death.  Meeting  her  from  time  to  time 
after  the  lapse  of  years,  I  noticed  that  she  had 
entered  upon  new  fields  of  reading,  so  that  her 
literary  interests  were  by  no  means  stationary. 
Shortly  before  her  last  illness  she  had  too 
tardily  begun  to  set  down  her  ripest  judgments 
upon  books  in  a  series  of  articles  for  a  news- 
paper. The  chief  fruit  of  this,  her  latest  lit- 
erary activity,  was  the  paper  upon  "The  Man 
Shakespeare." 

It  was  said  of  the  late  M.  Edmond  Scherer 
that  he  judged  books  with  his  character  rather 
than  with  his  intelligence.  Perhaps  the  saying 
is  quite  as  true  of  our  modest  friend  as  of  the 
distinguished  French  critic.  Her  well-consid- 
ered thoughts  were  put  forward  with  a  grave 
sincerity  that  carried  conviction.  The  things 
she  said  might  have  sounded  trite  from  another ; 
but  in  her  accent  and  bearing  was  that  which 
assured  us  of  being  in  the  presence  of  reality. 
No  thought  fully  realized  can  seem  common- 
place. It  may  be  that  to  strangers  some  of  the 
essays  in  the  present  volume  will  appear  of 

20 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

somewhat  loose  and  uneven  texture.  Their 
value  to  us  who  knew  her  and  loved  her  con- 
sists, not  so  much  in  their  special  message,  as 
in  their  suggestiveness  of  her  who  wrought 
them  "in  a  sad  sincerity."  What  is  it  to  us  if 
the  sentences  are  sometimes  disconnected  jot- 
tings ?  They  are  but  posts  bearing  the  invisible 
wires  charged  with  thrilling  and  messageful 
currents.  As  we  read  she  comes  back  to  us, 
a  beautiful  presence,  and  we  are  penetrated  by 
her  grave,  sweet  tones.  It  is  a  very  blessed 
thing  that  the  noblest  woman  we  have  known 
should  thus  live  for  us  in  these  pages,  "to  a 
life  beyond  life."  In  a  very  real  sense  she  is 
here;  her  presence  illuminates  all;  her  char- 
acter is  gloss  and  comment. 

It  is  certainly  to  be  regretted  that  she  could 
not  herself  have  prepared  for  the  press  a  volume 
of  her  maturest  essays.  This  book  is  primarily 
for  those  who  loved  her.  Even  the  stranger, 
however,  if  not  unsympathetic,  may  find  his 
account  in  some  of  these  unpretending  essays 
and  sketches.  He  will  not  forget  that  the 
author  was  first  and  last  a  teacher — her  instru- 
ment the  spoken  word  rather  than  the  pen — 

21 


CATHARINE  MERRILL:  REMINISCENCES 

and  will  not  look  for  the  continuity  and  finish 
that  stamp  the  work  of  the  professional  writer. 
The  quality  and  value  of  her  work  might  be 
very  well  illustrated  by  a  contrast  between  the 
paper  on  "The  Man  Shakespeare"  and  Walter 
Bagehot's  essay  on  the  same  subject.  The  latter 
is  obviously  the  work  of  a  master  of  the  pro- 
fession of  letters:  the  ripe  fruit  of  a  full, 
vigorous,  genial  intelligence.  In  the  wide  circle 
of  his  musings,  Bagehot  encounters  the  shadowy 
figure  that  we  call  Shakespeare  and  undertakes 
to  endow  it  with  human  traits.  The  sketch  is 
soon  made,  and  the  prolific  artist  proceeds  to 
employ  his  affluent  brush  upon  another  canvas. 
Miss  Merrill's  essay,  on  the  other  hand,  if  also 
in  one  sense  an  occasional  product,  is  really  a 
collection  of  choses  vues,  things  seen  through- 
out a  life  of  loving  intercourse  with  Shakes- 
peare. A  few  weeks  before  her  death  she  recalls 
some  of  these  impressions,  and  notes  them  down 
with  a  trembling  hand.  The  thoughts  derive 
peculiar  interest  from  being  those  of  a  sagacious 
woman.  Shakespeare  owes  much  of  his  great- 
ness to  the  circumstance  that  he  had  so  much 
of  the  woman  in  him,  whereby  he  was  all  the 

22 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

greater  as  a  man.  This  gives  peculiar  interest 
to  the  interpretations  of  Shakespeare  by  noble 
women.  No  man  has  spoken  of  him  with  more 
insight  than  has  been  shown  by  women:  Lady 
Montague,  Mrs.  Jameson,  Fanny  Kemble,  Lady 
Martin. 

Catharine  Merrill  lacked  many  of  the  advan- 
tages enjoyed  by  such  women.  Not  that  her 
circle  was  undistinguished,  for,  in  the  course  of 
her  long  life,  she  enjoyed  the  intimacy  of  many 
persons  of  eminent  character  and  attainments. 
Nevertheless  it  cannot  be  denied  that  she 
missed,  for  the  most  part,  the  stimulating  en- 
counters afforded  by  intercourse  with  leading 
spirits  at  a  great  center  of  culture.  Living  at 
a  great  capital,  Miss  Merrill  might  well  have 
been  more  productive  in  a  literary  way;  she 
would  not  necessarily  have  been  wiser,  nor  is  it 
likely  that  she  would  have  known  her  Shakes- 
peare any  better.  What  she  has  to  say  of  him 
is  marked  by  her  own  sagacity,  sincerity,  and 
sympathy,  and  forms  an  instructive  addition  to 
the  gallery  of  portraits  of  him  drawn  by  women 
who  knew  and  understood  him. 

I  have  never  known  another  woman  who, 
23 


CATHARINE  MERRILL:  REMINISCENCES 

upon  intimate  acquaintance,  made  an  impres- 
sion of  such  pure  spirituality.  It  is  rather  dif- 
ficult to  imagine  how  her  nature  would  have 
been  modified  by  different  outward  relations. 
In  her  teaching  she  emphasized  the  truth  that 
wifehood  and  motherhood  are  the  normal  con- 
ditions of  a  woman's  life;  and  one  feels  that 
she  would  have  been  as  exemplary  in  that  sphere 
as  in  the  one  she  chose.  Possibly  such  a  life 
might  have  narrowed  her  influence.  It  was 
marvelous  how  entirely  she  transcended  the 
limitations  that  commonly  hedge  about  unmar- 
ried women  (and  men  too)  as  they  advance  in 
years.  So  far  from  involving  impairment  of 
sympathy,  the  life  she  led  made  her  sympathies 
wider,  if  not  deeper,  than  they  could  otherwise 
well  have  been.  With  a  greater  endowment  of 
sympathy  she  could  scarcely  have  held  her  own 
in  the  world.  Looking  backward  and  upward 
upon  her  entire  life,  as  we  can  now,  we  feel  it 
to  be  one  beautiful  harmony,  unthinkable  other- 
wise. In  one  of  her  letters  she  quotes  Mrs. 
Jameson's  fine  saying:  "Mary  stood  by  the 
cross,  saw  her  son  die,  and  went  with  John  and 
lived."  It  is  well  that  Catharine  Merrill's 

24 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

fortitude  should  have  been  spared  such  a 
test.  As  it  was,  she  suffered  far  too  much. 
What  personal  griefs  were  to  others,  such 
vicarious  griefs  were  to  her.  Wherever  sorrow 
came  to  her  notice,  she  needed  no  command  to 
impel  her  to  "weep  with  them  that  weep."  In 
her  sympathy  there  was  no  alloy  of  wordy  ex- 
hortation; it  was  the  throbbing  of  a  bruised 
and  bleeding  heart.  The  following  extracts 
from  her  letters  need  no  comment : 

"That  lacerating  pity  we  have  for  others  is 
the  most  grievous  thing  in  life — 

"  'All  for  pity  I  could  die.' 

"How  many  times  I  have  said  that  little  line 
of  Spenser's  to  myself,  because  it  seemed  to 
express  the  last  anguish  of  pity.  One  comes 
out  of  sorrow  a  changed  being,  with  fewer  small 
interests,  and  wider,  deeper  sympathies.  So  it 
elevates  and  enriches,  or  so  it  should.  We 
are  certainly  the  better  for  disappointment 
and  trouble,  unless  we  are  wilful  and  rebel- 
lious." 

Again:  "I  love  you  and  mourn  with  you; 
this  is  all.  Every  day  I  think  of  you,  some- 

25 


CATHARINE  MERRILL:  REMINISCENCES 

times  all  day  long.  I  know  well  what  it  is  to 
carry  a  grave  in  one's  very  heart.  It  is  a  sore 
burden,  a  heavy  weight,  and  so  cold." 

To  a  father  whose  only  daughter  had  died 
at  the  age  of  ten  years : 

"All  day  long  and  all  night,  too,  since  I 
heard  of  your  sore  bereavement,  I  have  borne 
your  sorrow  in  an  already  heavy  heart.  *  *  * 
The  friendship  of  father  and  daughter  has  al- 
ways been  a  favorite  topic  with  me ;  there  have 
been  such  notable  instances,  and  there  are  such 
peculiar  grounds  of  love.  There  are  hours  when 
I  cannot  use  my  eyes  in  reading ;  consequently 
my  mind  wanders  off  in  fancies;  and  I  had 
many  a  pretty  thought  [of  the  companionship 
of  father  and  daughter].  Now  she  would  be  a 
gently  wild  creature  of  twelve  years, 

"  'The  sweetest  thing  that  ever  grew 
Beside  a  human  door'; 

"Now  blooming  and  fair  and  responsive  at 
sixteen  and  eighteen;  and  far  on  in  life  the 
bright,  soft  star  of  declining  years." 

Charitable  and  indulgent  to  others  as  she 
was,  Miss  Merrill's  self-discipline,  both  moral 
and  intellectual,  was  severe.  "She  was  rigid 

26 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

with  herself,"  are  the  simple  words  of  one  who 
knew;  how  rigid  few  of  us  can  do  more  than 
guess.  In  no  wise  an  ascetic,  she  spared  her- 
self almost  as  little  as  did  her  name-saint  of 
Siena.  Her  self-discipline  was  enlightened  and 
purposeful.  She  would  not  permit  her  duties 
to  conflict  and  was  capable  of  dropping  upon 
the  ready  shoulders  of  others  a  burden  that 
overtaxed  her;  but  only  that  she  might  devote 
herself  with  single-minded  consecration  to  her 
peculiar  tasks.  She  was  distinguished  for  un- 
wearying attention  to  details:  a  mark,  not  in- 
deed of  genius,  as  has  been  asserted,  but  of 
greatness.  Moments  were  golden  to  her,  yet  she 
gave  her  moments  and  her  hours  without  stint 
and  without  complaint,  to  little  things  and  to 
little  people.  She  liked  to  be  able  to  meet 
people  on  their  own  ground.  "Miss  Merrill 
had  a  great  respect  for  sewing,"  is  the  eulogy 
pronounced  upon  her  by  a  seamstress.  She 
once  wrote  me  about  a  detailed  course  of  study 
for  young  girls,  which  she  thought  of  publish- 
ing. She  had  copied  the  considerable  mass  of 
material  many  times  with  her  own  hand  for  the 
benefit  of  individuals;  and  she  was  much  sur- 

27 


CATHARINE  MERRILL:  REMINISCENCES 

prised  when  once  "a  generous  lady"  insisted 
on  paying  her  for  her  trouble.  "I  used  the 
seven  dollars  for  the  benefit  of  poor  students, 
and  was  grateful  for  it." 

The  simple  words  are  full  of  pathos  to  one 
who  thinks  of  her  limited  strength  and  failing 
eyesight. 

Perhaps  there  is  not  one  of  her  wide  circle 
of  friends  and  pupils  but  could  recall  some 
individual  instance  of  this  kind.  If  she  was 
taxed  and  drained  by  her  devoted  helpfulness, 
one  never  heard  of  it  from  her.  There  was 
doubtless  an  inner  reward.  She  was  very  happy 
in  her  work  and  often  said:  "I  feel  that  I 
receive  more  than  I  give."  She  enjoyed  watch- 
ing the  unfolding  of  the  minds  of  her  pupils, 
as  she  enjoyed  the  growth  of  her  flowers;  nor 
did  she  seem  to  take  more  credit  to  herself  for 
the  one  than  the  other.  Notwithstanding  the 
heavy  burdens  she  bore,  her  life  was  on  the 
whole  a  happy  one,  and  she  clung  to  it.  She 
always  referred  to  death  with  shrinking;  I 
think  she  fully  felt  its  horror.  Yet  she  looked 
forward  with  serenity  to  an  eternal  reunion 
with  all  she  loved.  The  following  words  from 

28 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

an  old  letter  seem  to  indicate  that  her  religion 
was  substantially  identical  with  what  Lord 
Shaftesbury  called  the  religion  of  all  sensible 
men: 

"One  would  be  a  fool  not  to  grow  more 
thoughtful  with  experience  and  observation  in 
this  involved,  perplexing  and  perplexed,  dis- 
tressful, and  yet — if  you  get  up  high  enough — 
happy  and  beautiful  world.  It  is  hard  to  be- 
lieve/ says  Tennyson,  *but  harder  not  to  be- 
lieve/ It  is  a  mystery,  but  all  we  have  to  do 
is  to  behave  ourselves.  That  is  hard  enough." 

Of  course  the  impressions  that  I  have  here 
set  down  touching  this  large  and  admirable 
character  make  no  pretense  to  completeness  or 
finality.  During  the  last  twenty  years  of  Miss 
Merrill's  life  I  saw  her  but  at  long  intervals. 
Time  which  has  deepened  my  veneration  for 
her  has  washed  out  of  my  memory  many  of 
those  little  details  of  act  and  word  that  give 
reality  to  a  portrait.  Her  personality  lies  in  my 
memory  in  large,  simple  outlines,  like  a  land- 
scape at  twilight.  I  know  that  she  never  ceased 
to  grow,  and  that  she  had  the  art  of  making  new 
friends  in  old  age.  Some  one  of  those  whose 

29 


CATHARINE  MERRILL:  REMINISCENCES 

privilege  it  was  to  live  near  her  to  the  last  and 
who  has  the  requisite  material  at  command, 
should  write  in  detail  the  story  of  her  life. 
"The  Catharine  Merrill  biographical  material, 
so  rich  in  scenery,  history,  art,  literature,  and 
big,  warm,  all-embracing  sympathy,  written  as 
it  should  be  written,  would  be  literature,  a 
cheering,  charming,  helpful  book  for  every- 
body." These  words,  which  I  take  the  liberty 
to  quote  from  a  private  letter  from  Mr.  John 
Muir,  may  stimulate  some  one  to  undertake  a 
task  so  useful  and  delightful. 

Acquaintance  with  such  a  character  tends 
to  build  up  the  most  helpful  kind  of  faith. 
Nothing  can  be  more  reassuring.  Those  who 
had  the  good  fortune  to  know  a  human  being 
so  large  and  excellent  should  take  pious  care 
that  her  memory  does  not  fade  with  the  passing 
of  the  lives  of  those  she  immediately  touched. 
Certainly  none  who  knew  her  can  ever  forget 
her;  but,  as  she  chose  to  be  a  teacher  rather 
than  a  writer,  her  influence,  though  intense, 
was  comparatively  restricted.  Shall  there  not 
be  an  authentic  record  that  such  a  beautiful 
life  was  actually  lived? 

30 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

In  particular,  we  should  like  to  know  more 
of  the  first  half  of  her  life.  Unsupported  by 
the  evidence  such  a  book  should  contain,  it  is 
very  difficult  to  speak  adequately  of  her  without 
incurring  the  suspicion  of  extravagant  lauda- 
tion. So,  instead  of  tinkling  the  cymbals  of 
eulogy,  let  me  quote  in  conclusion  the  simple 
words  of  one  of  her  pupils,  words  to  which  all 
who  knew  her  will  warmly  assent:  "There  is 
nobody  like  her — no  one  else  so  serene  and  fine, 
so  calm  and  so  full  of  feeling." 

MELVILLE  B.  ANDERSON. 


31 


WORDS  FROM  AN  OLD  FRIEND 

Miss  Merrill  was  the  first  friend  I  found  in 
Indiana,  and  one  of  the  kindest,  wisest,  and 
most  helpful  of  my  life.  I  first  met  her  about 
thirty-five  years  ago  through  a  letter  of  intro- 
duction from  Professor  J.  D.  Butler,  when  I 
was  studying  plants  and  rocks  around  Indian- 
apolis. Knowing  how  shy  I  was,  and  fearing 
I  might  not  deliver  his  letter  he  took  pains  to 
tell  how  rare  and  good  she  was  in  heart  and 
mind,  and  to  assure  me  that  at  first  sight  all 
bashful  misery  would  vanish,  for  none  better 
than  she  knew  that  "a  man's  a  man  for  a'  that." 
And  so  it  proved.  She  became  interested  in 
my  studies,  loaned  me  books,  and  I  soon 
learned  to  admire  her  scholarship,  keen,  sane, 
kindly  criticism,  the  wonderful  range  of  her 
sympathies,  her  kindness  in  always  calling  at- 
tention to  the  best  in  the  character  of  any  one 
under  discussion  living  or  dead,  and  her 
weariless,  unostentatious,  practical  benevolence 

32 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

in  smoothing  as  she  was  able  the  pathways  of 
others  and  helping  them  up  into  wider, 
brighter,  purer  living.  But  it  was  in  a  time  of 
trouble,  then  drawing  nigh,  that  I  learned  to 
know  her  well.  While  at  work  in  a  mill  my 
right  eye  was  pierced  by  a  file,  and  then  came 
the  darkest  time  of  my  life.  I  was  blind  for 
months  and  the  blindness  threatened  to  be 
lasting  and  complete.  She  came  to  my  dark- 
ened room  an  angel  of  light,  with  hope  and 
cheer  and  sympathy  purely  divine,  procured 
the  services  of  the  best  oculist  and  the  children 
she  knew  I  loved.  And  when  at  last  after  long 
months  of  kindness  and  skill  she  saw  me  out 
in  Heaven's  sunshine  again,  fairly  adrift  in  the 
glorious  bloom  of  the  spring,  her  joy  was  as 
great  as  my  own. 

And  in  her  beautiful  life  how  many  others 
has  she  lifted  up, — cheered  and  charmed  out  of 
darkness  into  light!  Few  have  left  the  world 
so  widely  beloved,  and  it  is  not  easy  for  those 
who  knew  her  to  speak  of  her  without  apparent 
excess. 

She  was  tall,  rather  frail  looking,  with  broad 
brow  and  wonderful  eyes,  a  countenance  glow- 

33 


WORDS  FROM  AN  OLD  FRIEND 

ing  with,  kindness  and  as  free  from  guile  as  a 
child's.  She  was  an  admirable  scholar,  with 
perfect  mental  independence,  and  her  heart 
was  one  of  the  kindest  and  least  selfish  I  ever 
found.  Those  who  knew  her  best  loved  her 
best,  and  almost  worshiped  her.  Everywhere 
she  was  welcomed  like  light — in  social  gather- 
ings, clubs  and  camps,  homes  and  schools,  asy- 
lums, hospitals,  churches  and  jails;  for  she  was 
a  natural  teacher  and  helper,  a  bearer  of  others' 
burdens,  brightener  of  others'  joys.  None 
could  be  near  her  without  being  made  better. 
One  was  lifted  and  strengthened  simply  by  see- 
ing her.  The  weary  and  troubled  went  to  her 
as  the  thirsty  to  a  well.  Her  home  was  a  cen- 
ter of  heart  sunshine.  Like  a  stream  with  deep 
fountains  she  was  a  friend  on  whom  we  could 
depend,  always  the  same,  steady  as  a  star.  And 
like  streams  and  stars  in  their  flowing  and  shin- 
ing she  seemed  wholly  unconscious  of  the  good 
she  was  doing.  However  important  the  work 
in  hand  she  never  appeared  to  be  in  a  hurry 
or  laboring  beyond  her  strength.  In  the  midst 
of  striving  crowds  she  seemed  calm,  gaining 
her  ends  with  apparent  ease.  She  followed  the 

34 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

well-beaten  roads  of  humanity  with  the  enthu- 
siasm and  freshness  of  perception  of  the  ex- 
plorer in  new  fields.  Before  her  all  embracing 
sympathy  obstacles  melted.  Humble,  devout, 
reverent  in  presence  of  life's  mysteries,  her  faith 
in  the  final  outcome  of  good  never  varied,  while 
humor  and  common  sense  preserved  her  from 
extravagance  of  opinion  and  language. 

She  had  a  profound  knowledge  of  human 
nature,  and  her  judgment  and  sagacity  in  prac- 
tical affairs  enabled  her  not  only  to  give  good 
advice,  but  to  get  things  done;  love  and  sym- 
pathy giving  wonderful  insight.  Her  eye  took 
in  all  humanity,  studying  characteristics  of 
states  and  nations  as  well  as  individuals  in 
every  walk  of  life,  tracing  springs  of  action 
through  all  concealments  as  an  explorer  traces 
the  fountain  heads  of  rivers,  searching  out  ways 
of  being  good  and  doing  good,  never  discour- 
aged, leaving  results  to  be  as  God  pleased;  bow- 
ing in  storms  like  a  slender  plant  and  springing 
up  again;  rejoicing  in  all  truth,  especially 
happy  when  she  discovered  something  to  praise 
in  what  seemed  only  evil,  some  good  motive 
where  only  bad  ones  had  been  known. 

35 


WORDS  FROM  AN  OLD  FRIEND 

Though,  always  busy,  valuing  each  day  as  it 
came  out  of  eternity,  she  always  had  time  for 
others,  as  if  she  had  no  pleasures  or  pains  of 
her  own,  no  temptations  to  fight  against,  no 
perturbing  passions.  She  made  her  way 
through  the  scrambling,  fighting,  loving,  hat- 
ing, suffering,  rejoicing  world  with  no  more 
apparent  perplexity  or  effort  than  the  world 
itself  displays  in  making  its  way  through  the 
heavens. 

She  had  a  rare  gift  of  teaching,  and  most 
of  her  life  was  devoted  to  it.  An  enthusiastic 
student  and  lover  of  literature,  she  kept  inspir- 
ingly  close  to  the  minds  of  her  scholars  and 
easily  led  them  to  do  their  best,  while  her 
downright,  steadfast,  glowing  goodness  gained 
their  hearts.  Above  all  she  was  a  builder  of 
character,  teaching  the  great  art  of  right- 
living,  holding  up  by  word  and  example  the 
loftiest  ideals  of  conduct,  fidelity  to  conscience 
and  duty,  and  plain  unchanging  foundational 
righteousness  as  the  law  of  life  under  whatever 
circumstances.  And  these  noble  lessons  went 
home  to  the  hearts  of  her  pupils. 

Conservative,  believing  in  hard  work,  follow- 

36 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

ing  Heaven's  ever  old,  ever  new,  love-lighted 
ways,  placing  no  dependence  on  plans  for  get- 
ting something  for  nothing — comfortable  in- 
ventions for  abolishing  ignorance  and  sin — 
machinery  for  hoisting  humanity  to  spiritual 
heights,  salvation  by  ballots,  etc.,  she  never-, 
theless  welcomed  new  ideas  with  hospitality, 
eager  to  discover  something  useful  in  new  plans 
however  little  they  promised,  humbly  hoping 
and  groping  through  life's  sad  cloudy  places  as 
best  she  could,  holding  fast  the  good  as  she  was 
able  to  see  it,  under  whatever  garb,  steadied  by 
a  rare  sanity  and  robust  commonsense  applica- 
ble to  every  situation.  And  this  breadth  and 
steadiness  of  mind,  combined  with  immeasur- 
able sympathy,  bound  her  scholars  to  her 
through  life.  No  wonder  they  never  forgot  her. 
"To  know  her  was  a  liberal  education." 

Nothing  in  all  her  noble  love-laden  life  was 
more  characteristic  than  its  serenity.  Of  the 
showy  reformer  crying  aloud  in  the  confidence 
of  comfortable  ignorance  there  was  never  a 
trace.  Going  about  humbly  among  all  sorts  of 
people  she  did  what  she  could  of  the  good  that 
was  nearest,  preaching  without  sermons,  in- 

37 


WORDS  FROM  AN  OLD  FRIEND 

formal  as  sunshine,  her  whole  life  a  lesson  of 
faith,  hope  and  charity. 

Though  I  saw  hut  little  of  her  after  the  first 
year  or  two  in  Indiana,  her  gracious  influence, 
not  easily  put  into  words,  never  lost  its 
charm.  Go  where  I  would  in  my  long,  lonely 
wanderings  "the  idea  of  her  life  would  sweetly 
glide  into  my  study  of  imagination,"  and  so,  I 
doubt  not,  it  was  with  her  friends  near  and  far. 

She  never  grew  old.  To  her  last  day  her 
mind  was  clear,  and  her  warm  heart  glowed 
with  the  beauty  and  enthusiasm  of  youth. 
In  loving  hearts  she  still  lives,  and  loving 
hearts  are  her  monument. 

JOHN  MUIR. 


38 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE 

AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AS   REVEALED  IN  HIS 
WORKS 

Three  hundred  years  ago  the  man  who  was 
destined  to  shed  a  new  and  abiding  glory  over 
literature  and  over  life  walked  the  streets  of 
London  unrecognized,  unknown  and  uncon- 
scious. No  prophet  and  no  sage  had  stood  by 
his  cradle  and  no  record  had  been  made  of  the 
unfolding  of  the  young  existence;  no  scholar 
had  directed  his  education,  nor  was  there  ever 
a  Boswell,  or  a  Trevelyan,  or  a  Froude,  or  a 
revering  son  to  cherish  his  words  and  to  pry 
into  his  letters.  His  was  the  common  lot — to 
pass  away  like  a  tale  that  is  told.  The  very 
agony  of  curiosity  discovers  scarce  a  fact  besides 
dates  of  christening,  marriage  and  death,  with 
deeds  of  purchase  and  sale. 

Can  we  not,  then,  find  out  by  his  works  what 
manner  of  man  this  was?  It  is  both  common 
sense  and  Holy  Scripture  thus  to  do.  But  we 
are  told  it  is  useless  to  try;  that  Shakespeare 
is  so  entirely  the  artist,  he  must,  as  man,  for- 

41 


SHAKESPEARE  AS  REVEALED  IN  HIS  WORKS 

ever  elude  our  touch  and  our  sight.  Milton's 
soul  betrays  itself  even  in  the  choice  of  a  sub- 
ject. The  honest,  happy  heart  of  Walter  Scott 
appears  in  every  canto  of  his  poems,  and  in 
every  chapter  of  his  novels.  All  down  the  list 
of  English  authors,  from  Chaucer  to  Lowell 
and  Howells,  we  see  the  man  in  the  book — his 
aims  and  purposes,  hopes  and  fears,  loves  and 
hates,  his  habits  and  manners,  his  politics  and 
his  religion,  his  friends  and  his  foes;  but  so 
obscure  is  Shakespeare's  cipher  that  the  inter- 
preter sees  in  it  what  he  will,  and  claims  the 
man  for  whatever  he  himself  is — Papist  or 
Protestant,  atheist  or  fatalist,  rioter  or  solid 
citizen,  royalist  and  aristocrat,  or  republican  or 
democrat. 

Even  in  trifles  Shakespeare  seems  noncom- 
mittal. Smoking  was  the  fashion,  and  the  new 
fashion  set  by  the  admired  Ealeigh;  scores  of 
London  shops  sold  tobacco;  all  the  writers  of 
the  day,  from  serious  Spenser  to  jovial  Ben 
Jonson,  from  the  king  to  the  water  poet,  cen- 
sure or  commend  the  American  weed — all  but 
one;  Shakespeare  never  mentions  it.  Did  he 
smoke  in  those  wit  combats  in  the  Mermaid,  or 

42 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

did  he  not  ?  When  he  returned  to  his  home  in 
Stratford,  did  he  find  in  his  pipe  consolation 
for  gay  society,  or  was  he  denied  the  soothing 
influence?  Here,  as  in  questions  of  greater 
import,  the  answer  is  according  to  the  inclina- 
tion of  the  respondent.  Nobody  knows.  Nobody 
can  make  any  positive  affirmation  in  regard  to 
the  habits  of  Shakespeare.  Behind  the  mask 
of  tragedy  or  of  comedy  the  man  seems  to 
baffle  the  shrewd  and  to  laugh  at  the  wise.  To 
try  to  snatch  away  the  mask,  or  even  to  peep 
under  it,  smacks  of  audacity.  Yet  perhaps  this 
is  all  a  superstition,  and  though  not  so  easily  or 
so  thoroughly  read  as  others,  still  the  man  in  his 
larger  features  may  be  recognized  in  what  he 
did.  At  all  events,  one  may  make  the  attempt. 
That  conclusions  from  the  same  premises 
should  be  different  and  even  opposite  is  due 
to  the  character  of  the  time,  and  to  the  com- 
prehensive, impartial  mind  of  the  poet,  as  well 
as  to  the  idiosyncrasies  and  limitations  of  the 
investigator.  The  current  of  public  interest 
was  nearing  a  tremendous  crisis ;  questions  were 
rising  of  wider  and  higher  importance  than  any 
that  had  ever  yet  disturbed  the  English  mind. 

43 


SHAKESPEARE  AS  REVEALED  IN  HIS  WORKS 

In  the  political  and  spiritual  change  involved 
in  church  affairs  there  was  a  moral  interreg- 
num. Men  were  fiercely  taking  sides.  Dissen- 
sion and  severance  threatened  national,  re- 
ligious, social,  and  even  domestic  life.  One 
man,  and  perhaps  only  one,  found  the  broad 
bottom  on  which  stood  together  Puritan  and 
Anglican,  Presbyterian  and  Roman  Catholic, 
the  nascent  republican  and  the  full-grown  be- 
liever in  the  divine  right  of  kings,  the  scholar, 
the  sage,  the  child  and  the  fool — the  basis  where 
are  all  the  elements  that  in  various  combina- 
tions form  individual  life,  character,  and  action. 
A  nature  so  broad  that  it  embraced  all  in  knowl- 
edge was  so  deep  that  it  included  all  in  love. 
The  head  and  the  heart  are  really  the  same — 
one  living  thing,  and  not  two.  Shakespeare, 
the  myriad-minded,  was  necessarily  the  large- 
hearted,  the  myriad-hearted,  so  thoroughly 
comprehensive  of  all,  that  each  partisan  finds 
himself  included,  and  is  able  to  cut  out  his  own 
field  of  belief.  But  in  spite  of  this  comprehen- 
siveness, this  many-sidedness,  Shakespeare  had 
his  own  character  and  his  own  opinions.  And 
he  had  not  only  the  genius  to  understand  and  to 

44 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

love,  but  the  courage  of  the  day,  shown  by  other 
men  on  the  high  seas  and  in  the  desperate  bat- 
tles of  France,  and  Spain,  and  Holland,  and  in 
the  no  less  desperate  council  chamber  of  Eliza- 
beth. He  exerted  it  in  his  own  sphere,  in 
opposition  to  rules  of  the  classics,  creating  an 
imaginary  world  according  to  the  laws  of  the 
real  world,  holding  the  mirror  bravely  up  to 
nature. 

He  was  not  rapid  and  brilliant;  he  felt  his 
way  at  first,  handling  his  tools  cautiously,  and 
coming  slowly  to  their  full  and  free  use.  This 
slowness  of  development  was  in  contrast  with 
the  rush  and  spring  of  the  impetuous  Marlowe. 
Though  in  "Love's  Labor  Lost,"  probably 
Shakespeare's  first  play,  and  "Hamlet,"  written 
in  the  maturity  of  his  powers,  there  is  a  mighty 
difference,  careful  examination  of  the  work  be- 
tween shows  that  for  years  the  progress  of  the 
poet  was  slow  and  steady.  What  Cecil  said  of 
Raleigh  might,  I  am  sure,  have  been  said  of 
Shakespeare — "He  can  toil  terribly." 

Next  to  actual  experience  and  observation, 
Shakespeare  probably  found  in  history,  judg- 
ing by  the  direction  his  early  labors  took,  the 

45 


SHAKESPEARE  AS  REVEALED  IN  HIS  WORKS 

most  strengthening  and  inspiring  intellectual 
food.  Perhaps  history  is  generally  the  most 
improving  of  all  studies.  Its  humanity  relieves 
it  from  the  dryness,  the  hard  exactness  and  the 
tendency  to  technicalities  belonging  to  the  pure 
sciences.  Even  the  study  of  law  is  narrowing. 
Even  the  study  of  theology,  strange  as  this  may 
seem,  is  hardening.  "The  proper  study  of 
mankind  is  man."  It  was  man  that  Shakes- 
peare studied,  finding  history,  after  real  life, 
of  most  absorbing  interest.  The  dead  pages  of 
dry  chronicles  were  alive  to  him.  He  read  there 
the  thing,  not  mere  names  and  dates;  he  read 
causes,  results,  meanings,  characters,  in  all  their 
involutions,  evolutions,  revolutions,  complexi- 
ties and  mysteries.  He  took  insight,  imagina- 
tion, sympathy,  to  the  pages  of  history,  and 
gathered  there  food  for  his  genius.  He  thought 
profoundly,  reflecting  on  the  relation  of  one  to 
the  whole,  of  the  whole  to  one,  of  all  to  God, 
and  of  God  to  all.  He  saw  that  beauty,  and 
royalty,  and  riches,  and  genius,  and  glory,  and 
life  itself,  are  lighter  than  feathers  in  the  scales 
of  justice ;  that  as  surely  as  there  is  sin  there  is 
retribution;  that  the  innocent  are  often  swal- 

46 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

lowed  up  with  the  guilty;  that,  though  the 
greatest  effects  may  follow  the  slightest  causes, 
there  remains  an  indestructible  moral  order; 
that  goodness  can  not  fail;  that  truth,  though 
it  speak  with  the  voice  of  Cassandra,  and  no 
man  may  believe  it,  will  forever  stand. 

In  the  living  tide  of  which  he  formed  a  part 
he  saw  the  same  growth,  the  same  action  and 
interaction  of  character,  the  same  appalling 
vicissitudes  of  fortune  that  made  the  attraction 
of  history.  "Not  of  an  age,  but  for  all  time," 
he  still  reflected  current  thought  and  feeling; 
he  sympathized  with  contemporary  actors,  with 
the  explorers  of  the  high  seas,  the  colonizers  of 
new  worlds,  with  English  soldiers  in  foreign 
lands,  with  patriot  statesmen  at  home.  He 
understood  the  bright,  brave,  hard  queen  on  the 
throne,  the  bright,  brave,  bad  queen  in  the 
prison  and  on  the  scaffold.  Sometimes  an 
extraordinary  burst  of  sunlight  or  a  fierce  gleam 
of  lightning  for  a  moment  opens  to  common 
eyes  the  secret  chambers  of  another's  life — such 
moments  Shakespeare  held,  making  the  tran- 
sient flash  a  lasting  day. 

In  all  Shakespeare's  works  are  proofs  of  a 

47 


SHAKESPEARE  AS  REPEALED  IN  HIS  WORKS 

lively,  country  boyhood.  Twenty  laborious 
years  in  London  did  not  efface  the  remembrance 
of  the  beautiful  and  bountiful  landscape  of 
central  England,  the  soft  flowing  and  silvery 
river,  the  wide  grain  fields,  the  grassy  meadows, 
the  noble  woods  and  the  low  line  of  undulating 
hills.  Montaigne's  father  had  his  infant  son 
woke  on  each  new  day,  not  to  the  rude  sounds  of 
bustling  business,  but  to  strains  of  softest  music, 
in  order  that  peace  and  joy  and  harmony  might 
be  infused  into  the  very  stuff  of  the  soul. 
Happy  the  child  that  in  his  first  breathings, 
his  fancies  and  dreams  and  plays,  in  his  first, 
wondering  acquaintance  with  this  marvelous 
world,  hears  nature's  music — the  murmur  of 
waters,  the  rustle  of  leaves,  the  whisper  of 
breezes,  the  singing  of  birds.  Only  one  who  in 
childhood  had  learned  the  wild  flowers,  wild 
birds  and  forest  trees,  and  who  retained  the 
keen  edge  of  childish  impressions,  could  speak 
of  them  and  their  kindred  with  Shakespeare's 
knowledge  and  affection.  His  touch  is  like  a 
caress;  he  names  the  pretty  creatures  of  the 
wood  as  if  he  kissed  them.  Only  one  who  had 
felt  a  child's  rapture  in  the  sights  and  sounds 

48 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

of  spring  could  give  the  delicate  strokes  that 
mark  his  allusions  to  the  season: 

"  When  daisies  pied,  and  violets  blue, 
And  lady-smocks  all  silver  white, 
And  cuckoo-buds  of  yellow  hue 
Do  paint  the  meadows  with  delight: — " 

when  the  "daffodils  come  before  the  swallow 
dares,  and  take  the  winds  of  March  with 
beauty."  He  well  knows  the  willow,  "that  shows 
his  hoar  leaves  in  the  glassy  stream."  The 
Avon  is  fringed  in  many  places  with  willows, 
and  the  man  remembered  what  the  boy  had 
noted,  that  the  hoary  underside  of  the  leaf  was 
reflected  in  the  water. 

Nobody  felt  with  more  devotion  of  spirit  the 
general  aspect  of  the  world  of  nature  than  did 
Milton — "The  nodding  horror  of  the  shady 
wood,"  the  solemnity  of  "the  gray-hooded  even, 
like  a  sad  votarist  in  palmer's  weed,"  "the 
dingle,"  "the  bushy  dell,"  "the  bosky  bourn," 
and  "every  flower  that  sad  embroidery  wears;" 
but  the  city  poet's  allusions  and  descriptions 
have  not  the  sharp  shining  edge  that  marks 
the  effusions  of  the  poet  who  was  born  in  the 
little  country  town  of  Stratford  and  wandered 

49 


SHAKESPEARE  AS  REVEALED  IN  HIS  WORKS 

as  a  boy  through  the  meadows,  fields  and  vil- 
lages roundabout. 

"  I  know  a  bank  whereon  the  wild  thyme  blows, 
Where  oxslips  and  the  nodding  violet  grows." 

sang  Shakespeare;  sang,  too,  of  "violets  dim, 
but  sweeter  than  the  lids  of  Juno's  eyes  or 
Cytherea's  breath."  Chaucer  knelt  'TTpon  the 
smale,  softe,  sweete  gras"  to  see  the  unclosing 
of  the  daisy,  which  ''blissful  sight  softened  all 
his  sorrow."  His  note  is  like  that  of  the  greater 
and  later  poet,  Shakespeare. 

"If  music  be  the  food  of  love, 
*    *    *    That  strain  again    *    *    * 
Oh,  it  came  o'er  my  ear  like  the  sweet  sound 
That  breathes  upon  a  bank  of  violets, 
Stealing  and  giving  odour!" 

The  healthiest  and  happiest  hearts  are 
grounded  in  this  sympathy  with  the  natural 
world.  Without  it,  Shakespeare  would  still  be 
a  great  poet,  but  he  would  not  be  "Sweetest 
Shakespeare,  Fancy's  child,  warbling  his  native 
wood  notes  wild." 

The  wits  and  poets  of  the  century  after 
Shakespeare  wondered  at  the  simplicity  and 
dulness  of  his  women.  He  had,  indeed,  no  place 
for  the  brilliant  society  woman;  but  he  had 

50 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

evidently,  early  in  his  life,  somewhere  seen, 
known  and  loved  the  truest  and  highest  type 
of  womanhood.  Mary  Arden,  the  youngest  but 
one  of  nine  or  ten  sisters,  by  her  father's  will 
made  executrix  of  his  considerable  estate,  may 
have  possessed  strength  of  character,  as  well  as 
gentle  blood.  Anne  Hathaway  may  have  been 
a  woman  to  fascinate  for  life.  Johnson, 
D'Israeli,  Lord  Eussell  and  many  others  loved 
devotedly  women  with  whom  there  was  even 
greater  disparity  of  age  than  existed  between 
Shakespeare  and  Anne.  However  the  poet 
gained  the  knowledge,  he  knew  the  nature  of 
women. 

He  also  knew  children  and  was  the  first  to 
introduce  them  into  literature.  Before  him  the 
little  martyr  whose  fame  Chaucer  sings,  and  a 
boy  with  a  magic  mouth,  are  the  only  children 
in  English  story.  With  Shakespeare,  they  come 
trooping  to  the  stage  of  life.  Noble  little  tragic 
beings  they  are,  mostly,  but  we  have  also  the 
child  who  is  full  of  frolic  and  fun.  The  great 
poet  honored  women  and  loved  children. 

Mark  Twain  says  that  when  he  thinks  out  a 
good  thing  in  his  study  it  is  so  real  to  him  that 

51 


SHAKESPEARE  AS  REVEALED  IN  HIS  WORKS 

then  and  there  he  has  his  laugh.  Dickens  de- 
clared that  he  so  agonized  over  his  works  that 
he  could  not  rid  himself  of  the  personages  his 
teeming  brain  created.  All  through  the  months 
of  labor  on  "The  Old  Curiosity  Shop,"  Little 
Nell  haunted  him.  If  he  walked  along  a  coun- 
try road  he  saw  her  gathering  flowers  in  a 
meadow;  if  he  sat  on  a  bench  to  rest  he  saw 
her  there,  comforting  the  old  man;  when  he 
threaded  his  way  through  the  crowded  street 
she  slipped  her  little  hand  into  his  hand  and 
lifted  her  confiding  eyes  to  his  face;  when  he 
turned  into  an  alley  she  met  him  at  the  corner 
or  looked  over  his  shoulder.  Everywhere  and 
always  he  saw  the  dear  face  that  his  own  fancy 
had  made  a  real  thing.  So,  and  doubly  so, 
Shakespeare  must  have  been  attended.  Imagine 
him  at  his  desk  setting  Glendower  and  Hot- 
spur going,  making  Falstaff  not  only  witty  him- 
self, but  the  cause  of  wit  in  others;  hearing 
Dogberry  urge:  "Oh,  that  I  had  been  writ 
down  an  ass!"  If  Mark  Twain  can  laugh  at 
Huckleberry  Finn,  fancy  the  merriment  of  the 
creator  of  Holofernes,  and  Dull,  and  Moth,  and 
Sir  Toby,  and  Malvolio,  and  Maria,  and  Verges, 

52 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

and  Dogberry,  and  Prince  Hal,  and  Falstaff,  as 
they  disputed  and  bragged  and  capered  about 
him  at  his  desk,  or  strutted  and  staggered  and 
larded  the  lean  earth,  as  he  walked  the  streets ! 
Perhaps  it  was  in  the  parks  about  Stratford,  or 
in  the  hunting  grounds  near  London,  as  he 
rested  beside  the  "brawling  brook"  where  "The 
green  leaves  quiver  in  the  cooling  wind,  and 
make  chequered  shadows  on  the  ground,"  that 
these  creations  of  his  brain  thronged  about  him 
in  the  greatest  number.  There  he  held  the  lists 
and  saw  fell  Mowbray  and  haughty  Boling- 
broke  checked  by  the  cry:  "The  King  hath 
thrown  his  warder  down."  There  King  Harry, 
in  his  young  wisdom,  held  council  of  state.  But 
thicker  than  warriors  or  statesmen  would  come 
in  his  happy  moods  the  gay  figures  of  fantastic 
comedy.  The  bright  and  airy  Rosalind  would 
comfort  the  weaker  vessel  and  allow  the  fool  to 
comfort  her.  The  gay  Beatrice  and  the  merry 
Benedick  would  sharpen  their  wits  upon  each 
other  and  be  caught  in  their  own  toils.  The 
woods  would  be  full  of  the  playful  and  the 
beautiful.  Shakespeare's  mirthfulness  em- 
braces everything  of  the  laughter-loving  and 

53 


SHAKESPEARE  AS  REVEALED  IN  HIS  WORKS 

laughter-producing — sting,  satire,  philosophic 
irony,  flashing  wit,  playful  jest,  gentle  humor 
and  also  coarse,  indecent  fun. 

Custom  then  permitted  a  freedom  of  lan- 
guage and  allusion  that  would  now  be  intoler- 
able. Words  in  some  instances  have  changed 
their  meaning,  and  are  more  gross  now.  Other 
playwrights  were  worse  than  he.  But  even  after 
these  allowances,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the 
master  spirit  of  the  time,  the  greatest  genius 
of  our  English  race,  was  sometimes  guilty  of 
pandering  to  the  coarse  demands  of  the  pit,  or 
to  the  vile  taste  of  the  court,  or  possibly  of 
grossly  indulging  his  own  sense  of  the  ludicrous. 

Yet,  though  stooping  to  indecency,  Shakes- 
peare never  excused  frivolity.  He  represents 
the  flippant  soul  as  capable  of  treachery  and 
murder.  His  exuberant,  abounding  mirthful- 
ness  is  seldom  unmixed  mirthfulness.  There  is 
nearly  always  a  shadow  in  the  background. 
The  fun  may  grow  fast  and  furious,  but  through 
it  all,  or  after  it  all,  comes  an  awful  sense  of 
responsibility,  or  a  fearful  moment  of  retribu- 
tion. The  seriousness  of  life  is  never  long 
absent  from  Shakespeare's  thoughts.  In  the 

54 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

midst  of  scenes  of  mirth  he  is  aware  of  the 
shadow  of  death,  or  mistake  or  shame.  And 
there  came  a  time,  apparently,  when  he  was  not 
a  mere  looker  on  and  sympathizer,  when  his 
own  sunny  soul  was  clouded  over  and  tempest- 
tossed.  Whether  he  suffered  disappointment 
in  the  character  of  one  he  loved  or  ingratitude's 
thankless  tooth,  or  slander's  venomed  spear,  or 
the  heavy  burden  of  others'  woes,  we  can  not 
know.  We  know  only  that  for  some  reason  his 
soul  went  down  into  the  grave,  yet  not  to  death, 
for  he  now  struggled  to  solve  urgent  but  in- 
solvable  questions.  The  dark  time  passed,  leav- 
ing the  terrible  yet  magnificent  creations  with 
which  he  thronged  "Hamlet,"  "King  Lear," 
"Macbeth,"  "Othello,"  "Timon,"  and  though 
he  never  more  flashed  out  in  wild  wit  and 
mirth,  he  was  again  happy  and  playful. 

We  can  trace  in  Shakespeare's  work  his  esti- 
mation of  the  bonds  of  kinship,  friendship, 
society  and  religion ;  of  all,  indeed,  of  the  ties 
that  bind  man  to  his  fellows  and  to  his  God. 
Kindred  are  bound  by  "holy  cords  which  are 
too  intrinse  to  unloose."  A  child's  duty  to  her 
father  is  a  "holy  duty."  A  spasm  of  filial  love 

55 


SHAKESPEARE  AS  REVEALED  IN  HIS  WORKS 

holds  back  the  hand  of  a  murderer.  The  daugh- 
ter's heart  breaks  with  tenderness  as  she  bends 
over  the  father's  unconscious  form.  Marriage 
is  "a  contract  of  eternal  bond  of  love,  confirmed 
by  mutual  joinder  of  the  hands,  attested  by  the 
holy  close  of  lips."  Never  does  Shakespeare 
find  carelessness  in  regard  to  domestic  bonds 
attractive.  The  last  ties  to  be  severed  by  wick- 
edness are  the  ties  between  husband  and  wife. 
Until  they  are  maddened  by  crime,  Macbeth 
and  his  wife  retain  their  affection;  then  she, 
consumed  by  one  thought,  dies  alone,  and  he 
gives  her  but  a  passing  word:  "She  should 
have  died  hereafter." 

Fidelity  of  any  kind  the  dramatist  loves  to 
honor.  The  mere  mention  of  their  names 
brings  to  mind  the  friendship  of  Antonio  and 
Bassanio,  Valentine  and  Proteus,  Celia  and 
Rosalind,  Beatrice  and  Hero,  Horatio  and  Ham- 
let, the  devotion  of  old  Adam  to  young  Orlando, 
of  Pauline  to  Hermione,  Emilie  to  Desdemona, 
of  the  fool  to  Lear,,  and  of  Kent  to  Cordelia. 
Only  one  in  whose  own  royalty  of  nature  friend- 
ship and  faith  were  planted  deep  could  have 
so  nobly  told  the  noble  story  of  their  loves.  In 

56 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

his  thirtieth  sonnet  we  have  Shakespeare  in  his 
own  person  bemoaning  the  loss  of  friends  and 
turning  with  sure  faith  and  with  love  that  wants 
consolation  to  the  friend  who  remains.  He  had 
great  capacity  for  trust,  utter  freedom  from 
low-born  and  low-bred  suspicion,  and  yet  was 
so  wise !  He  might  have  been  mistaken  some- 
times; he  never  could  be  unappreciative  or 
unforgiving.  And  how  compassionately  would 
his  large  heart  perceive  mistake  or  error !  How 
generously  his  hand  would  snatch  the  humbled 
spirit  from  a  cruel  world  or  from  its  own  cruel 
despair!  How  he  would  believe  in  the  sorely 
wounded  soul,  and  with  what  refinement  of  love 
he  would  infuse  consolation,  hope  and  courage ! 
Peradventure  for  a  friend  some  would  even  dare 
to  die.  Such  a  friend  Shakespeare  must  have 
been. 

He  hated  "ingratitude  more  in  man  than 
any  taint  whose  strong  corruption  inhabits  our 
frail  blood." 

With  scorn  of  scorn  he  rebuked  back-wound- 
ing calumny. 

"  'Tis  slander, 

Whose  edge  Is  sharper  than  the  sword;  whose  tongue 
Outvenoms  all  the  worms  of  Nile;  whose  breath 

57 


SHAKESPEARE  AS  REVEALED  IN  HIS  WORKS 

Rides  on  the  posting  winds,  and  doth  belie 
All  corners  of  the  world:  kings,  queens,  and  state«, 
Maids,  matrons — nay,  the  secrets  of  the  grave 
This  viperous  slander  enters." 

The  burial  song  of  the  two  royal  boys  in  the 
mountains — 

"  Fear  no  more  the  lightning-  flash, 

Nor  the  all-dreaded  thunder-stone; 
Fear  not  slander,  censure  rash, 
Thou   hast  finished   joy  and  moan" — 

is  only  less  sad  than  the  saddest  lines:  "Done 
to  death  by  slanderous  tongues;"  "Be  thou  as 
chaste  as  ice,  as  pure  as  snow,  thou  shalt  not 
escape  calumny."  Shakespeare's  vilest  char- 
acter is  not  Claudius,  who  murders  his  brother, 
marries  his  brother's  wife,  and  cheats  his  broth- 
er's son;  nor  Macbeth,  whose  cruel  heart  con- 
demns to  death  king  and  kinsmen,  friend  and 
fellow  soldier,  woman  and  child.  His  vilest 
character  is  not  the  murderer,  it  is  the  slan- 
derer, "whose  tongue  is  set  on  fire  of  hell." 
lago  is  "slanderous  as  Satan." 

Shakespeare,  with  his  keen  enjoyment  of  the 
placid  country,  of  the  stirring  city,  of  friend- 
ship and  society,  and  wit  and  wine,  and  the 
pomp  of  circumstance,  probably  dreaded  the 
thought  of  dying,  and  it  may  have  been  that 

58 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

he  spoke  from  his  own  quivering  heart  when 
he  represented  a  reckless  youth,  arrested  in  the 
midst  of  revelry  hy  sentence  of  death,  as  crying 
out :  Death  is  a  fearful  thing ! 

"  To  die  and  go  we  know  not  where; 
To  lie  in  cold  obstruction  and  to  rot; 
This  sensible  warm  motion  to  become 
A  kneaded  clod.    *    *    * 
Or  to  be  worse  than  worst 
Of  those  that  lawless  and  uncertain  thought* 
Imagine  howling!    'Tis  too  horrible! 
The  weariest  and  most  loathed  worldly  life, 
That  age,  ache,  penury  and  Imprisonment 
Can  lay  on  nature,  is  a  paradise 
To  what  we  fear  of  death." 

Who  that  knows  vigorous,  powerful,  intense 
life,  does  not  shrink  from  the  thought  of  the 
glazed  eye,  the  dull,  cold  ear,  the  narrow  bed 
heaped  with  heavy  earth?  As  the  touch  of  a 
corpse  was  a  horror  to  the  ancient  Israelite  and 
unfitted  him  for  the  holy  service  of  the  temple, 
so  to  intense  vitality  is  the  suggestion  of  death. 
There  is  such  a  vast  and  awful  gulf  between 
life  and  death. 

Hamlet's  soliloquies  are  Hamlet's.  Yet  they 
may  represent  a  doubting  state  of  the  author's 
mind.  "Lord,  I  believe;  help  Thou  mine  un- 
belief," was  the  prayer  of  one  who  knew  his 

59 


SHAKESPEARE  AS  REVEALED  IN  HIS  WORKS 

soul  to  be  the  battlefield  of  opposing  powers — 
of  faith  and  of  fear,  of  hope  and  of  despair, 
of  doubt  and  of  assurance.  There  were,  "ob- 
stinate questionings"  in  the  poet's  mind,  and  he 
was  shaken  "with  thoughts  beyond  the  reaches 
of  our  souls" ;  but  he  worked  unswervingly  ac- 
cording to  the  great  principles  of  the  moral 
world.  No  other  uninspired  writer  has  shown 
with  such  power  the  writhings  of  a  wounded 
conscience.  No  other  has  shown  so  plainly,  to 
use  the  words  of  Lowell,  that  "One  sin  forever 
involves  another,  and  that  the  key  that  unlocks 
forbidden  doors  to  our  will  or  passion,  leaves 
a  stain  on  the  hand  that  may  not  be  so  dark  as 
blood,  but  that  will  not  out."  No  other  has 
more  forcibly  held  up  to  our  view  a  merciful 
Eedeemer. 


"Why,  all  the  souls  that  are,  were  forfeit  once; 
And  he  that  might  the  vantage  best  have  took 
Found  out  the  remedy." 


No  other  has  shown  so  well  that,  though  in- 
nocence and  virtue  may  be  cast  down,  they  can 
not  fail ;  that  the  memory  of  the  just  is  blessed ; 
that  the  name  of  the  wicked  shall  not  live ;  that 

60 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

there  are  times  when  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
can  be  taken  only  by  violence. 

When  we  see  a  princess,  delicate  and  tender 
as  the  blossoms  of  early  spring,  bearing  herself 
in  deep  and  terrible  abandonment  with  pa- 
tience, with  common  sense,  with  resolute  cour- 
age; when  we  see  a  determined  girl  play  the 
part  of  a  learned  physician  and  of  a  lonely 
pilgrim  to  save  the  man  she  loves  from  a  dis- 
solute life;  when  we  see  divorced  wives  and 
disgraced  queens  and  dishonored  lords  deport 
themselves  with  queenly  or  with  lordly  dignity, 
we  receive  a  just  and  generous  inspiration. 
When  we  see  that,  relentless  as  fate,  the  poet 
brings  swift  and  dire  retribution  on  those  who 
fail  to  meet  the  demands  of  their  situation,  we 
recognize  justice  in  its  power  and  its  ter- 
ror. 

Prospero,  tempted  from  affairs  and  the  du- 
ties of  state  by  his  love  of  books,  loses  his  duke- 
dom. Hamlet,  perplexed  among  conflicting 
claims,  dies  a  failure.  Othello,  who,  spite  of 
the  most  damning  evidence,  ought  to  have  be- 
lieved in  the  fair  Desdemona,  doubts  and  is 
lost.  Claudio  fails  in  the  hour  of  trial,  Leo- 

61 


SHAKESPEARE  AS  REVEALED  IN  HIS  WORKS 

natus  fails,  Macbeth  fails.  Angelo  shamefully 
fails.  Thus  Shakespeare  weighs  his  characters, 
while  he  seems  only  to  be  allowing  them  to  live 
according  to  the  inventions  of  their  own  hearts. 
On  our  first  reading  we  scarcely  know,  more 
than  they,  that  they  are  in  a  state  of  trial.  It 
is  only  when  we  pause  and  reflect,  that  the  pro- 
found gravity  of  situation  and  circumstance 
presses  upon  us.  Then,  as  the  seemingly  strong 
and  noble  yield  to  the  tempter  and  go  down  to 
ruin,  we  almost  feel  the  throb  of  the  great  heart 
of  their  creator. 

The  same  powerful  subject  is  dramatically 
treated  by  both  Shakespeare  and  Milton  in 
"Antony  and  Cleopatra"  and  in  "Samson 
Agonistes."  Before  the  opening  of  his  drama 
Milton's  hero  has  been  brought  to  shame,  cap- 
tivity and  blindness,  and  has  revolted  against 
the  blandishments  of  the  siren.  In  prison,  and 
in  chains,  his  soul  rises  to  its  native  height, 
and  though  he  falls  the  victim  of  Delilah's 
wiles,  he  snatches  triumph  from  the  jaws  of 
defeat.  The  tenderness,  sympathy,  scorn,  re- 
lentless justice,  with  which  Shakespeare  treats 
that  mighty  ruin,  Mark  Antony,  who  before  our 

62 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

eyes,  swiftly  slides  down  the  slope  of  self-indul- 
gence to  the  pit  of  perdition,  make  a  picture 
still  more  awful. 

In  "Samson  Agonistes"  the  poet  speaks  with 
a  judicial  severity  that  can  not  be  misunder- 
stood; in  "Antony  and  Cleopatra"  the  drama- 
tist's tone  of  mocking  irony  deceives  the 
unthinking.  Yet  Shakespeare  was  no  mocker. 
Not  Milton  himself  was  more  strict  when  pun- 
ishment was  to  be  meted  out.  But  he  had  what 
Milton  had  not,  sympathy  for  every  variety  of 
human  nature,  a  sympathy  born  of  the  heart, 
which  in  estimate  of  character  is  more  discern- 
ing than  the  head. 

In  both  these  great  poets,  so  nearly  contem- 
porary, there  is  always  a  certain  heroism,  a 
glorious  patriotism  and  devoted  love  for  their 
England  the  "precious  stone  set  in  the  silver 
sea,"  a  noble  trust  in  humanity  and  a  lofty 
hope  for  the  race.  Byron  makes  us  feel  that  the 
world  is  disorderly,  licentious,  cruel  and  fierce. 
Jt  has  been  well  said  that  the  earth  peopled  with 
Byron's  heroes — Giaours,  Laras,  Cains,  and  Don 
Juans — would  be  a  hell.  Fancy,  on  the  other 
hand,  a  world  of  Cordelias,  Kents,  Edgars, 

63 


SHAKESPEARE  AS  REVEALED  IN  HIS  WORKS 

Violas,  Portias !  Shakespeare  is  happy  with  the 
happiness  of  a  sweet,  healthy  spirit,  "radiant," 
Carlyle  would  say,  "with  pepticity."  Byron  is 
miserable;  the  whole  head  and  heart  are  sick, 
and  he  satirizes  and  jeers  and  hates.  Through 
all  the  stir  and  tumult  of  life,  Shakespeare  sees 
law  and  order,  the  thread  of  duty  binding  day 
to  day;  confusion  only  when  this  thread  is 
broken  or  tangled  or  lost.  Both  Shakespeare 
and  Byron  acknowledge  a  divinity  that  shapes 
our  ends.  One  makes  the  acknowledgment  with 
awe ;  the  other  shakes  his  fist  in  the  face  of  the 
Almighty !  We  rise  from  Shakespeare  with  re- 
newed interest  in  life,  with  renewed  love  for 
our  kind,  with  renewed  courage  and  strength, 
with  gratitude  to  the  interpreter  of  our  mysteri- 
ous world  (obscure  though  his  own  understand- 
ing of  the  mystery  often  is),  and  with  wonder 
and  admiration  for  his  mighty  powers.  We 
close  Byron  penetrated  with  the  greatness,  the 
awfulness  of  his  genius,  yet  with  faith  unset- 
tled, hope  bewildered,  with  some  feeling  of 
repugnance  and  with  almost  an  infinite  pity. 

Some  read  in  Shakespeare's  works  that  he 
had  no  faith  in  God;  none  deny  that  he  had 

64 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

faith  in  man;  if  you  trust  your  brother,  can  you 
not  trust  God? 

When  I  heard  it  said  with  reverence  by 
a  reader  of  the  great  dramatist,  "He  knew 
what  was  in  man  as  no  other  knew  except 
Jesus  Christ,"  I  thought  of  Hazlitf  s  report 
of  the  conversation  on  the  persons  one  would 
wish  to  have  seen.  '"There  is  only  one  other 
person  I  can  ever  think  of  after  this,"  con- 
tinued Lamb.  "If  Shakespeare  were  to  come 
into  the  room,  we  should  all  rise  up  to  meet  him, 
but  if  that  Person  were  to  come  into  it,  we 
should  all  fall  down  and  try  to  kiss  the  hem  of 
His  garment." 


"  Poor  soul,  the  center  of  my  sinful  earth. 
Fooled  by  those  rebel  powers  that  thee  array, 
Why  dost  thou  pine  within  and  suffer  dearth, 
Painting  thy  outward  walls  so  costly  gay? 
Why  so  large  cost,  having  so  short  a  lease, 
Dost  thou  upon  thy  fading  mansion  spend? 
Shall  worms,  inheritors  of  this  excess, 
Eat  up  thy  charge?    Is  this  thy  body's  end? 
Then,  soul,  live  thou  upon  thy  servant,  loss, 
And  let  that  pine  to  aggravate  thy  store; 
Buy  terms  divine  in  selling  hours  of  dross; 
Within  be  fed,  without  be  rich  no  more, 
So  shalt  thou  feed  on  Death,  that  feeds  on  men. 
And  Death  once  dead,  there  is  no  more  dying  then." 


65 


INDIANAPOLIS  IN  WAR  TIME 

On  the  12th  of  April,  1861,  an  intensely 
excited  crowd  in  Indianapolis  waited  all  day- 
long for  a  telegraph  despatch,  no  business  at- 
tended to,  nothing  thought  of  but  the  coming 
message.  The  interest  of  months,  the  absorbing 
thought  of  weeks  had  culminated  in  a  passion 
of  anxiety — something  decisive,  something  ter- 
rible was  coming.  But  even  yet  there  was  an 
inconsistent,  contradictory  feeling  of  incredu- 
lity, of  mocking,  and  of  hope. 

At  ten  o'clock  at  night  the  despatch  came: 
"Sumter  has  fallen."  The  crowd  was  abso- 
lutely still,  and,  with  all  the  preparation  of  sus- 
pense, surprised.  Rebellion,  rebellion  was  what 
it  meant;  and  that  rebellion  meant  madness 
was  every  man's  thought. 

But  there  was  another  message:  "Mr.  Lin- 
coln will  issue  a  proclamation  to-morrow  call- 
ing for  seventy-five  thousand  volunteers."  The 
crowd  broke  into  a  fierce  shout.  These  auda- 
cious southern  sons  of  the  Republic  should 

66 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

learn  what  it  was  to  defy  just  and  lawful  au- 
thority. 

That  memorable  Saturday  was  followed  by  a 
memorable  Sunday.  Not  that  any  new  thing 
occurred;  all  was  new;  life  itself  was  new. 
That  12th  of  April  revealed  to  men  what  their 
country  was  to  them.  In  the  insult  to  the  high 
and  just  power  of  government,  each  man  had 
been  knocked  down  and  trampled  on.  When 
the  flag  rose  and  swelled  in  the  air,  and  dripped 
and  drooped  along  the  staff,  a  great  and  terrible 
pain  throbbed  in  every  heart;  a  strange,  new- 
born, passionate,  wounded,  outraged  love  of 
country. 

The  military  institutions  of  Indiana  con- 
sisted of  a  Quartermaster-General  and  an 
Adjutant-General,  who  were  paid  about  one 
hundred  dollars  a  year.  Perhaps  the  whole 
state  might  have  furnished  arms  for  a  single 
regiment ;  and  possibly  it  might  have  mustered 
five  independent  companies  of  militia.  But  pro- 
visions and  materials  for  war  were  absolutely 
lacking.  There  were,  of  course,  no  knapsacks, 
no  haversacks,  no  canteens,  no  tents,  and  there 
was  no  money.  In  Indianapolis  there  was  noth- 

67 


INDIANAPOLIS  IN  WAR  TIME 

ing  that  smacked  in  the  least  of  war  except  a 
poor  little  powder  house  somewhere  in  the  sub- 
urbs, and  the  contents  of  that  were  meant  for 
war  on  birds  and  squirrels.  In  twenty  years 
the  finances  of  Indiana  had  not  been  so  low. 
The  members  of  the  Legislature  and  other  state 
officers  had  been  paid  from  the  school  fund,  so 
empty  was  the  treasury. 

The  Executive  department  seemed  in  as  bad 
a  condition.  The  Governor,  a  tried  and  trusted 
man,  had  been  put  in  the  United  States  Senate, 
and  had  left  the  chief  authority  in  the  hands 
of  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  a  person  named 
Morton.  Who  knew  anything  about  Morton? 
But  before  the  President's  proclamation  was  out 
this  new  man  had  sent  agents  abroad  for  arms, 
and  five  minutes  after  the  President's  call  for 
volunteers  the  Indiana  Governor's  call  for  In- 
diana's part  of  the  seventy-five  thousand  was 
thrilling  along  the  wires. 

If  you  have  read  the  "Lady  of  the  Lake"  you 
remember  that  when  Eoderick  Dhu  and  Fitz 
James  stood  on  the  desert  mountain,  as  much 
alone  as  if  they  were  the  only  men  in  all  the 
Highlands,  at  a  whistle  from  Eoderick: 

68 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

"  Instant,  thro*  copse  and  heath, 
On  right,  on  left,  above,  below, 
Sprung  up  at  once  the  lurking  foe: 
As  if  the  yawning  hill  to  heaven 
A  subterranean  host  had  given." 

Thus  Governor  Morton's  call  was  responded  to. 
Fifteen  thousand  men  answered.  More  than 
eight  thousand  came  streaming  into  Indian- 
apolis, and  trooped,  shouting,  through  shouting 
crowds  to  the  spot  assigned  them  for  a  camp, 
the  grove  north  of  the  city,  named  at  once 
"Camp  Morton,"  for  the  man  suddenly  the  best 
known  personage  in  the  state.  This  spot  was 
selected  because  of  its  beauty,  healthf  ulness  and 
convenience.  It  contained  thirty-six  acres,  was 
high  and  dry,  could  be  easily  supplied  with 
wells  of  cold,  pure  water,  and  could  be  readily 
drained  by  means  of  a  stream  which  ran 
through  one  end.  Tall,  spreading  trees  lightly 
shaded  a  blue-grass  carpet,  bordered  in  the  fence 
corners  with  wild  flowers.  Flowers  and  grass 
never  again  spread  over  those  acres. 

The  volunteers  were  nearly  all  young  men, 
and  though  many  were  clerks,  lawyers,  doctors 
and  mechanics,  the  majority  were  farmers.  It 
may  be  true  that  they  who  own  land  love  their 
country  best. 


INDIANAPOLIS  IN  WAR  TIME 

The  story,  as  told  by  their  mother,  of  two 
country  boys  in  the  7th  Eegiment,  which  was 
one  of  the  first  to  be  formed  in  Camp  Morton, 
shows  a  little  of  the  love  and  manliness  that 
went  into  the  army.  These  two  young  men 
were  away  from  home,  at  work  on  a  neighbor's 
farm,  when  the  call  reached  them.  It  was  on  a 
Saturday  (the  19th).  The  younger  put  his 
name  down  first  on  the  enlistment  roll.  He 
was  a  good  boy,  said  his  mother,  but  he  was 
thoughtless,  and  he  had  a  weak  chest;  so  the 
elder,  partly  for  his  country  but  partly  for  his 
brother,  enlisted,  too.  He  was  twenty  years 
old,  steady  and  religious;  his  mother  was  not 
uneasy  about  him,  nor  was  she  uneasy  about 
the  younger,  for  had  he  not  his  brother  to  care 
for  him,  and  was  it  not  a  good  cause?  They 
did  not  come  home  on  Saturday  nor  on  Sunday; 
she  "reckoned"  they  could  not  tell  her.  And 
they  went  away  without  a  goodby,  except  in 
a  letter  which  some  one  brought  her  the  same 
morning.  But  from  Indianapolis,  they  sent 
her  their  daguerreotype  and  another  letter 
which  the  mother  read  so  often  that  she  could 
say  it  by  heart,  beginning  with  the  date  and 

70 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

ending  with  "Yours  till  death."  "I  wander 
around  these  hills,"  she  said,  "day  and  night, 
thinking  about  these  two  boys,  for  they  are  all 
I  have,  and  wondering  if  they  will  ever  come 
home  again."  Thousands  of  such  boys  were 
there  in  Camp  Morton,  while  far  away  on  the 
farm,  often  by  the  fireside  of  a  lonely  cabin, 
the  mother,  in  plaintive  voice,  told  the  tale  of 
their  enlistment.  Sometimes,  as  the  war  went 
on,  the  neighbors  told  of  long,  unrepining  sor- 
row, of  the  light  in  the  eyes  gone  out,  of  the 
fire  on  the  hearth  quenched. 

The  volunteers  were  the  best  army  material 
in  the  world,  but  they  were  only  material;  to 
turn  them  into  soldiers  was  no  easy  task.  It 
is  a  fact  that  "right"  and  "left"  had  to  be 
explained  by  "haw"  and  "gee"  for  some  of  the 
country  boys.  In  some  cases,  it  is  said,  officers 
ordered  wisps  of  straw  wound  around  one  foot, 
of  hay  about  the  other,  and  the  drilling  began 
easily  with,  "Hay-foot!  straw-foot!"  One  of 
these  slow,  dull  men  of  whom  I  personally 
knew  burst  out  into  a  full  blown  hero  in  his 
first  battle.  His  bearing,  from  that  of  an  awk- 
ward booby,  became  dignified  and  soldierly. 

71 


INDIANAPOLIS  IN  WAR  TIME 

He  entered  into  the  full  meaning  of  patriotism, 
and  into  the  full  heritage  of  his  soul,  when  he 
saw  himself  face  to  face  with  death.  He  was 
only  one  of  many.  The  very  dullest  intellect 
may  have  sleeping  behind  it  a  glorious  soul. 

To  learn  subordination  was  even  harder  than 
to  learn  military  tactics.  When  a  man  had  to 
go  to  another,  not  a  bit  better,  possibly,  than 
himself,  and  with  whom  he  had  perhaps  been 
"hail  fellow,"  and  ask  if  he  might  go  "down 
street,"  it  filled  him  with  consternation  and 
wrath.  He  sometimes  rebelled  on  the  spot,  and 
did  not  feel  less  rebellious  when  he  was  locked 
up  in  the  guard  house.  In  those  first  days 
everybody  knew  everything  that  took  place  at 
Camp  Morton  and  public  opinion  was  usually 
with  the  delinquent.  No  doubt  the  poor  fellow 
had  left  a  good  home  where  he  had  luxuries 
of  the  table,  soft  beds,  and  freedom  and  fun  to 
his  heart's  content;  where  there  were  few  temp- 
tations, where  his  mother  and  his  father  had 
been  his  familiar  friends  and  he  had  never 
dreamed  of  obeying  anybody.  The  hardest 
lesson,  therefore,  was  to  obey,  but,  though  more 
natural  to  command,  neither  was  this  easy.  A 

72 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

man  had  to  know  something  in  order  to  drill  a 
squad.  Three  or  four  elderly  officers  had  been 
trained  in  West  Point,  and  three  or  four  more 
had  been  in  the  Mexican  War.  These,  and 
books  on  military  discipline,  were  in  demand. 
All  who  aspired  to  become  officers  studied  Har- 
dee's  "Tactics." 

"  They  conned  their  books,  but  grasped  them  tight 
And  studied,  morning,  noon  and  night." 

The  delay  necessary  for  drill  was  repugnant 
to  the  feelings  of  the  volunteers.  A  tremendous 
impatience  tugged  at  their  heart-strings,  and 
tingled  to  their  finger  ends.  They  stretched 
their  limbs  and  doubled  their  fists,  they  set 
their  teeth  and  loudly  declared  they  were  spoil- 
ing for  a  fight.  "Eight !  Left !  Shoulder  arms !" 
The  war  would  be  over  and  no  glory  for  In- 
diana !  But  the  outspoken  anger  of  these  was 
light  in  comparison  with  the  sullen  wrath  of 
those  who  were  obliged  to  go  back  to  their 
homes  because  the  number  was  restricted  to  six 
thousand.  Some  actually  cried.  Governor 
Morton  urged  on  the  cabinet  the  danger  of 
dampening  enthusiasm,  and  his  policy  at  length 
prevailed.  In  May  and  June  new  calls  were 

73 


INDIANAPOLIS  IN  WAR  TIME 

made ;  and  in  August  all  restrictions  on  volun- 
teering were  removed.  The  Governor's  test  in 
appointing  officers  was  the  energy  and  ability 
with  which  men  had  pursued  their  own  busi- 
ness, and  he  made  few  mistakes. 

When  1861  closed,  Indiana  had  sixty  thou- 
sand men  in  the  field ;  and  the  numerous  camps 
around  Indianapolis  were  still  full.  Our  sol- 
diers were  no  better  or  no  braver  than  men  from 
other  states,  but  they  were  the  tallest  men  in 
the  army,  and  were  fine,  frank,  manly  fellows. 
Their  way  of  speaking  to  all  they  met,  said  to 
be  a  habit  more  common  among  the  country 
people  of  Indiana  than  of  any  other  state,  was 
very  pleasant.  The  feeling  between  soldiers  and 
citizens  was  friendly  and  free.  The  blue  coat 
was  an  introduction  to  general  good  will.  Our 
hands,  our  houses,  our  hearts  were  open  to  our 
soldiers.  And  people  did  not  tire  of  liberality. 

The  war  was  no  sixty-day  affair,  as  had  been 
promised.  It  went  on  and  on  and  recruiting 
went  steadily  on.  The  troops  in  town,  though 
always  changing,  were  never  gone.  The  streets 
were  always  thronged.  In  a  little  more  than 
four  years,  Indiana  gave  to  the  army  more 

74 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

than  two  hundred  thousand  men ;  not  counting 
fifty  thousand  who,  from  time  to  time,  were 
called  into  service  to  repel  invaders  and  to 
defend  the  southern  border.  The  town  was  full 
of  noise  and  bustle,  fire  and  fun,  and  feeling  of 
every  kind.  The  rub-a-dub  of  the  drum,  the 
wail  of  the  fife,  the  tramp  and  rush  of  infantry 
and  cavalry,  the  rattle  and  rumble  of  artillery ; 
the  cheers  that  went  up  day  and  night — cheers 
of  welcome,  cheers  of  greeting,  cheers  of  fare- 
well— the  singing  everywhere  and  at  all  hours 
of  the  "Star  Spangled  Banner"  "Rally  Round 
the  Flag,  Boys"  or  "John  Brown's  Body;"  the 
red,  white  and  blue,  not  only  in  the  flags  that 
were  flying  in  the  camps,  over  the  hospitals, 
through  all  the  streets,  in  the  churches  and  in 
the  homes,  but  in  dress  and  in  ornaments ;  the 
blue  coats,  the  brass  buttons  and  epaulets,  the 
fuss  and  feathers,  the  public  receptions,  the  flag 
presentations — all  made  such  life  and  stir  as 
probably  Indianapolis  will  never  again  see.  The 
shouts  deep  in  the  night,  when  some  long  train 
was  starting  off  with  its  closely  packed  living 
freight  towards  the  danger  of  the  front,  had  a 
tremulous,  penetrating,  wild  sort  of  pathos; 

75 


INDIANAPOLIS  IN  WAR  TIME 

and  the  songs  at  night  were  more  thrilling  than 
in  the  day. 

The  city  was  not  only  busy  and  bustling,  it 
was  growing.  From  eighteen  thousand  the 
population  became  seventy-five  thousand,  though 
this  increase,  of  course,  was  not  all  permanent. 
All  sorts  of  business  flourished,  from  house 
building  and  woolen  manufacture,  to  photo- 
graphing ;  that  is,  from  necessities  to  luxuries. 
An  arsenal  was  established  which  sometimes 
employed  five  hundred  persons.  In  1861  there 
had  been  prepared  at  the  arsenal,  ninety-two 
thousand  rounds  of  artillery  ammunition,  and 
twenty-one  million  nine  hundred  and  fifteen 
thousand  five  hundred  rounds  of  ammunition 
for  small  arms.  The  little  hospital,  started  with 
much  grumbling  a  few  years  before,  was  not 
half  large  enough,  and  an  addition  much  larger 
than  the  original  was  built. 

Indianapolis  was  the  center  of  the  State 
Sanitary  Commission,  the  first  organization  of 
the  kind  in  the  United  States,  which  supplied 
the  soldier  everywhere,  by  means  of  agents  em- 
ployed without  wages  or  salary  or  any  pecuniary 
remuneration,  with  whatever  the  government 
76 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

failed  to  furnish  for  his  comfort  and  advantage 
in  the  hospital,  in  the  camp,  on  the  march  or 
on  the  field.  Alfred  Harrison,  of  this  city,  was 
treasurer,  and,  with  Mr.  Hannaman  and  Mr. 
Merritt,  chiefly,  though  many  others  were  en- 
gaged, dispensed  four  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand dollars.  They  visited  every  field  after 
each  important  battle,  taking  with  them  every- 
thing that  sick,  wounded  or  sound  soldiers 
might  need.  In  hospitals  they  gave  advice,  con- 
solation and  refreshment.  Northwest  of  the 
town  they  built  a  large  and  commodious  chapel 
for  the  soldiers  who,  at  that  distance,  were 
tempted  to  stay  away  from  the  city  churches. 

The  sanitary  goods  were  furnished  by  private 
contribution.  Women  canned  fruit  for  the  sol- 
diers. They  knit  socks  and  mittens  for  them, 
often  placing  a  little  ball  for  darning  and  a 
little  letter  of  kindness  and  encouragement  in 
the  toe  of  a  sock.  They  scraped  lint  and  pre- 
pared bandages.  They  worked  for  men  they 
never  had  seen  as  they  worked  for  their  own 
sons.  Housekeeping  suffered.  The  call  to  give 
a  dinner  to  a  regiment  passing  through  town 
on  its  way  to  the  front,  or  to  one  that  had  just 

77 


INDIANAPOLIS  IN  WAR  TIME 

arrived,  was  as  promptly  obeyed  as  it  was  per- 
emptory. Hastily  filling  their  baskets  with  the 
best  in  pantry  or  cellar,  women  ran  to  the  rail- 
way station  and  joyfully  served  at  tables.  Our 
country  and  its  danger,  our  soldiers  and  their 
hardships  pressed  not  as  a  weight,  but  as  a 
motive  to  constant  and  untiring  exertion.  The 
men  who  could  not  go  to  the  field  urgently  and 
earnestly  supported  the  soldiers. 

All  the  powers  of  Governor  Morton's  fine 
mind  were  in  strenuous  toil.  He  lived  but  for 
the  country  and  the  army.  Already  his  health 
was  breaking,  but  he  could  not  sleep  nor  rest 
without  being  assured  that  all  was  done  that 
could  be  done.  It  was  no  uncommon  thing  to 
see  him  enter  the  Union  station  at  midnight, 
at  one,  two  or  three  in  the  morning,  that  he 
might  satisfy  himself  as  to  the  comfort  of  the 
troops  waiting  there  for  transportation.  This 
friend  of  the  soldiers  rests  now  in  Crown  Hill, 
with  the  sleeping  heroes  stretched  beside  him. 

At  first,  with  the  principal  moving  cause, 
patriotism,  were  mingled  a  wild  love  of  adven- 
ture and  a  proud  and  scornful  joy  in  the  pros- 
pect of  speedy  victory,  and  of  a  glorious  home- 

78 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

coming.  But  soon  the  dark  side  of  war  showed 
itself.  The  hospital,  with  its  extensive  addi- 
tions, was  crowded  with  sick  and  wounded  sent 
up  from  the  southern  battlefields.  Often  and 
often  a  long  narrow  pine  box  on  the  pavement 
in  front  of  the  express  office  gave  a  shudder  to 
the  lively,  passing  throng.  For  in  every  box 
was  a  dead  soldier,  one  who  had  gone  out  bloom- 
ing and  brave,  with  a  high  heart  and  hope. 

The  tidings  of  battle — it  mattered  little 
whether  of  victory  or  defeat,  for  one  is  only 
less  terrible  than  the  other — turned  the  very 
light  into  darkness.  The  first  rumor  some- 
times was  that  ten  thousand  had  fallen;  and 
we  thought  of  the  ten  thousand  homes,  plunged 
into  sudden  sorrow;  ten  thousand  mothers,  or 
wives,  or  sisters,  or  little  children  whose  happi- 
ness was  blasted.  We  heard  of  our  soldiers 
starving  among  the  mountains  of  Tennessee, 
freezing  on  the  plains  of  Missouri  and  slowly 
tortured  to  death  in  the  prison  pens  of  Libby 
and  in  Andersonville.  Never  went  up  to 
Heaven  more  fervent  prayers  for  country  and 
its  heroes,  than  rose  from  closet  and  from  fam- 
ily altar. 

79 


INDIANAPOLIS  IN  WAR  TIME 

Some  twenty  or  thirty  women  went  from 
town  as  hospital  nurses.  One  of  these,  an  idol- 
ized and  indulged  daughter,  wrote  thus  to  her 
parents:  "The  work  is  only  hard  and  sad  be- 
cause it  is  so  terrible  to  see  these  brave  fellows 
suffer.  I  want  to  do  it  above  everything.  I 
never  was  half  so  happy  in  my  life.  It  is  the 
best  blessing  that  God  ever  gave  me,  to  let  me 
come  and  help  in  the  only  way  a  woman  can. 
If  I  may  only  have  this  work  until  the  war  is 
over,  and  the  strength  to  do  it,  I  shall  never 
complain  of  anything  again.  I  would  buy  the 
privilege  with  the  happiest  hour  and  memory  I 
have." 

The  most  pitiful  spectacle  that  Indianapolis 
ever  saw  was  in  1862,  on  the  anniversary  of 
Washington's  birthday,  and  the  two  following 
days.  It  was  the  arrival  of  several  thousand 
prisoners  after  the  surrender  of  Fort  Donelson, 
gray  old  men  and  slender  boys,  with  sad,  lack- 
lustre eyes  and  haggard  faces.  Over  butternut- 
dyed  woolen  "wa'muses"  they  wore  quilts, 
blankets  and  strips  of  carpet.  They  carried 
frying-pans  or  tea-kettles,  crackers  and  bacon, 
bundles  or  meal  bags,  stuffed  with  clothing  or 

80 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

bedding.  They  were  thrifty  small  farmers  from 
town  and  landless  squatters  from  the  pine  hills 
of  Mississippi,  accustomed  to  a  climate  where 
roses  bloom  all  the  year  round.  They  had  suf- 
fered greatly  lying  in  rifle-pits  day  and  night, 
in  rain  and  snow,  with  little  food  and  no  shelter 
during  the  entire  siege.  They  were  humiliated 
by  the  surrender,  distressed  by  their  distance 
from  home,  full  of  fears  for  their  future,  ex- 
hausted, without  energy  to  wash  themselves, 
despondent  to  the  last  degree,  and  almost  with- 
out vitality.  One-tenth  of  them  had  frozen 
hands  or  feet.  Pity  and  curiosity,  and  only  pity 
and  curiosity,  were  on  the  faces  which  gazed 
on  the  prisoners,  wearily  dragging  themselves 
to  Camp  Morton,  relinquished  to  them  because 
it  was  the  largest  and  most  secure  of  the  camps. 
Everything  possible  was  done  for  their  health 
and  comfort,  yet  many  were  at  once  attacked 
with  pneumonia  or  kindred  disease.  One  hun- 
dred and  forty-four  died  the  first  month.  As 
the  city  hospital  and  the  camp  hospital  would 
not  accommodate  all  the  sick,  three  or  four 
buildings  in  the  center  of  the  town  were  appro- 
priated to  their  use.  They  were  under  the  charge 

81 


INDIANAPOLIS  IN  WAR  TIME 

of  Doctors  Bobbs,  Bullard,  Dunlap,  Jameson 
and  Fletcher.  Inspectors  from  Washington  at 
regular  intervals  examined  the  camp  and  hos- 
pitals. Dr.  Bullard's  hospital  was  the  old  post- 
office,  near  the  corner  of  Meridian  and  Wash- 
ington streets.  The  Doctor  asked  me,  among 
other  women,  to  help  in  getting  it  ready,  as  he 
wished  not  to  lose  an  hour  or  a  minute.  We 
sewed  up  the  beds,  made  "comforts,"  cut  the 
eagle  off  new  Federal  uniforms  and  sewed  black 
buttons  on,  spread  blankets  and  heated  bricks 
to  put  at  the  feet  of  the  sick  as  they  came  from 
camp.  We  continued  from  that  time  to  do  what 
we  could.  One  of  our  members,  a  young  woman, 
asked  her  mother  for  a  pillow  to  give  to  a 
Mississippian,  who  had  complained  that  his 
head  was  too  low.  "I  can't  give  you  one,"  was 
the  reply,  "I  stripped  the  house  for  our  sick 
soldiers  in  Kentucky;  you  have  stripped  it 
since  for  the  rebels,  and  really  there  is  nothing 
left."  "Then  I'll  give  him  my  pillow,"  said 
the  daughter.  So  she  carried  her  pillow  to  the 
hospital  and  herself  slept  with  a  folded  blanket 
under  her  head. 

One  of  the  saddest  sights  of  the  war  was  that 
82 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

presented  by  the  prisoners  from  Fort  Donelson, 
but  the  most  pitiable  was  the  return  to  the  army 
of  arrested  deserters.  In  the  single  month  of 
December,  1862,  more  than  two  thousand  de- 
serters were  taken  back  through  Indianapolis 
alone.  This  was  inconsistent  with  the  enthu- 
siasm of  patriotism  that  led  men  into  the  army. 
But  it  is  no  new  thing  to  turn  back  after  put- 
ting the  hand  to  the  plow.  Garibaldi,  when  he 
was  recruiting  his  forces  in  Italy,  said :  "I  offer 
you  hunger,  thirst,  cold,  want,  wounds,  death — 
who  will  choose  these  for  liberty,  let  him  follow 
me."  Our  officers  were  not  so  frank.  Indeed 
they  had  not  the  experience. 

In  every  civil  war  there  are  two  parties, 
smaller  in  number  than  those  actively  engaged, 
and  each  sympathizing  with  the  enemy.  In  the 
South  were  Union  people;  in  the  North,  were 
eecessidnists.  So  far  as  they  could  and  dared, 
the  secessionists  of  Indiana  thwarted  every  plan 
of  Governor  Morton.  Political  opposition  was 
supported  by  conspiracy.  A  day  was  appointed 
for  a  general  uprising.  Rebel  officers  were  at 
the  Bates  House,  in  disguise,  of  course,  to  take 
command.  Arms  for  the  conspirators  arrived. 

83 


INDIANAPOLIS  IN  WAR  TIME 

The  alert  Governor,  however,  opened  the  boxes, 
finding,  not  only  arms,  but  a  fuse  nearly  a  mile 
long,  and  "Greek  fire"  for  conflagration.  The 
"Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle"  were  balked. 
But  conspirators  never  represent,  or  can  repre- 
sent an  American  party.  Honest  difference  of 
opinion  must  exist  often,  but  will  never  seek  to 
hide  itself  under  a  black  mask  or  behind  treach- 
erous smiles. 

In  the  summer  of  1863  we  had  another 
fright;  this  time  from  the  outside.  It  was 
Wednesday,  the  8th  of  July,  and  the  evening 
was  as  peaceful  and  as  silent  as  if  "no  war  or 
battle's  sound  was  heard  the  world  around," 
when  suddenly  came  a  loud  clank  of  the  alarm 
bell.  Then  there  was  a  minute,  or  five  min- 
utes, of  deathly  stillness.  Another  stroke! 
Another  awful  hush !  Then  a  clang,  and  clangor 
and  clamor,  a  roar  and  uproar  of  bells  every- 
where. When  the  bells  stopped  the  air  was 
filled  with  the  stir  of  a  mighty  multitude.  All 
the  town  was  streaming  towards  the  Bates 
House.  I  can  yet  hear  Governor  Morton's  ring- 
ing voice  from  the  Bates  House  balcony.  "John 
Morgan  is  coming.  He  has  crossed  the  Ohio. 

84 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

He  is  in  Indiana.  H'e  has  with  him  four 
or  five  thousand  horsemen  and  artillery.  Or- 
ganize without  delay.  Go  at  once  to  your 
wards !" 

John  Morgan  was  a  wild  Kentucky  trooper, 
with  a  wilder  troop  at  his  heels.  Burning 
barns  was  fun  as  well  as  policy  to  this  band; 
clearing  out  ovens  and  pantries,  stealing  horses 
and  money,  were  necessities  of  war  and  their 
business.  The  banks  sent  their  gold  and  most  of 
their  currency  to  New  York;  the  bank  of  the 
state  cancelled  twenty-three  thousand  dollars 
of  its  own  issue  and  shipped  two  hundred  and 
sixty  thousand  dollars  in  gold  and  currency. 
People  concealed  their  valuables  and  hurried 
to  enlist.  Within  three  days  thirty  thousand 
men  were  organized  into  regiments,  twenty 
thousand  coming  in  from  the  country,  although 
it  was  harvest  time.  University  Park,  all  the 
central  streets,  and  Virginia  Avenue  to  the 
Union  station  were  crowded  with  men  who,  at 
the  call,  had  dropped  everything  and  caught  up 
their  knapsacks.  At  three  in  the  morning  of 
the  llth  the  alarm  bell  gave  notice  of  immedi- 
ate danger.  The  citizen  soldiers  were  hurried 

85 


INDIANAPOLIS  IN  WAR  TIME 

off.  But  John  Morgan  fled  away  and  his  pur- 
suers came  home  and  disbanded,  and  few  were 
the  worse  for  the  raid. 

In  spite  of  victories  now  and  then,  some 
of  them  of  very  great  importance,  the  refusal 
of  the  Legislature  to  give  help,  the  discovery  of 
treachery  in  our  own  town,  the  continuance  of 
the  war,  the  constant  call  for  troops  and  money, 
had  a  depressing  effect.  The  popularity  of  the 
mournful  song,  "When  this  cruel  war  is  over," 
was  an  indication  of  a  decrease  in  vigor  and 
buoyancy  of  feeling.  "After  all,"  came  the 
thought  to  many  minds,  "was  not  the  struggle 
to  prove  a  failure?  Was  not  our  noble  coun- 
try, the  hope  of  the  world,  falling  to  pieces?" 
Never  again,  if  our  Union  failed,  would  men  be 
able  to  establish  a  free  government.  With  our 
hopes  would  be  blasted  the  prospects  of  man- 
kind. And  we  were  growing  hopeless. 

When  the  hundred-days'  men  were  called  out, 
it  seemed  a  dying  effort,  though  the  call  met 
cheerful  response.  Our  town  never  saw  a  finer 
regiment  than  her  own,  the  132nd.  It  was  not 
the  flower  of  the  town — that  had  long  before 
been  carried  away — but  the  men  were  brave  and 

86 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

true.  It  pierced  Indianapolis  to  the  heart  when, 
after  a  few  days  of  drill  and  business,  for  many 
were  held  in  the  toils  of  business  until  the  last 
moment,  the  regiment,  on  the  21st  of  May, 
1864,  was  ordered  off.  In  the  short  period  of 
a  hundred  days'  service,  and  hard  service  it 
was,  some  died,  without  whom,  to  this  day,  our 
lives  have  been  poorer. 

But  the  darkest  hour  is  just  before  dawn. 
While  the  hundred-days'  men  guarded  bridges 
and  roads  and  mountain  passes,  Sherman  made 
his  magnificent  march  to  the  sea.  Thomas  scat- 
tered the  enemy  in  the  southwest  before  him. 
Grant  took  Fort  Fisher,  Petersburg  and  Rich- 
mond, and  prevailed  on  Lee  to  surrender. 

April  15th,  1865,  was  a  fair  and  joyful  day. 
The  sun  was  shining,  the  sky  was  blue  and 
cloudless.  Such  a  day  should  usher  in  only 
happiness.  A  single  sentence  put  out  the  light : 
"President  Lincoln  has  been  assassinated!" 

There  had  been  talk  of  assassination  of  Gov- 
ernor Morton,  and  he  had  been  shot  at  one 
midnight  as  he  left  the  heavy  labors  of  his 
office.  Bnt  we  had  not  really  believed.  Assas- 
sination in  our  country  seemed  impossible.  Yet 

87 


INDIANAPOLIS  IN  WAR  TIME 

the  President  was  assassinated.  He  had  lived 
through  the  terror  and  struggle.  He  had  died 
in  the  hour  of  triumph. 

A  few  days  later  the  murdered  man  lay  in 
state  in  our  old  capitol;  on  the  arch  over  his 
head,  "Sic  transit  gloria  mundi,"  and  thou- 
sands upon  thousands  passing  his  bier.  On  the 
blackest  of  nights,  the  body  was  carried  away 
through  a  lane  of  motionless  soldier  torch- 
bearers. 

On  the  3d  of  June,  1865,  peace  was  pro- 
claimed. The  troops  returned  to  Indianapolis, 
and  were  mustered  out,  regiment  by  regiment. 
The  summer  and  fall  were  a  continual  jubilee. 
But  the  web  of  our  life  is  of  mingled  threads; 
the  bright  may  dazzle,  but  the  black  is  there. 
As  the  regiments  marched  up  from  the  Union 
station  men  and  women  stood  here  and  there 
along  the  streets  with  eyes  fixed  on  the  flutter- 
ing flag,  and  tears  pouring  over  their  sad  faces. 
Deaf  to  the  welcoming  shouts,  blind  to  the  re- 
joicing crowd,  they  saw  shadowy  figures  follow- 
ing the  flag,  dim  faces  that  would  smile  on 
them  no  more. 

The  living  were  welcomed  home  with  uni- 

88 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

versal  joy;  the  dead  were  remembered  with 
unspeakable  sorrow.  But  the  sorrow  was  indi- 
vidual; the  joy  was  general,  for  the  country 
was  saved !  The  country  that  above  all  others 
was  the  hope,  and  is  the  hope,  of  the  world. 

"  She  that  lifts  up  the  manhood  of  the  poor, 
She  of  the  open  soul  and  open  door 
With  room  about  her  hearth  for  all  mankind! 
Oh  beautiful!    My  country,  ours  once  more! 
Among1  the  nations  bright  beyond  compare! 
What  were  our  lives  without  thee? 
What  all  our  lives  to  save  thee?" 

It  may  be  that  none  of  you  will  be  called  to 
die  or  to  suffer  for  our  country,  but  it  is  some- 
thing to  live  worthily.  It  is  a  debt  you  owe  to 
those  who  saved  this  fair  land. 


89 


THE  RAINBOW— A   MEMORY 

A  swift,  rushing  April  shower  was  just  over, 
when  the  school  in  the  hewed-log,  one-roomed 
schoolhouse  on  Maryland  street  had  its  recess. 
The  sky  was  of  deepest  blue,  and  all  across  the 
vault  of  heaven  was  a  vivid  rainbow.  It  stood 
out  like  a  thing  built  apart  from  the  sky  above 
and  the  earth  below.  The  boys  and  girls,  as 
they  streamed  out,  cheered  the  rainbow,  and 
with  loud  laughter  hurrahed  for  the  pot  of 
gold.  They  were  merrier  than  ever  when  the 
teacher's  little  daughter,  the  youngest  child  in 
school,  consented  to  go  in  search  of  the  pot  of 
gold. 

To  reach  it  she  must  climb  a  rail  fence  of 
appalling  height,  with  long,  fiercely-pointed 
rails  at  every  corner,  and  must  find  her  way 
across  a  newly-plowed  field  that  looked  almost 
as  wide  as  the  world.  The  boys  cheered  her 
on  and  the  girls  helped  her  up  the  first  rails. 
Hand  over  hand,  foot  cautiously  following 
foot,  at  last  she  reached  the  dizzy  top,  and 

90 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

dared  to  look  down.  On  one  side  was  the  vast 
field,  on  the  other  encouraging  friends,  far  be- 
low and  far  off.  Step  by  step,  rail  by  rail, 
bravely  she  climbed  down  and  ventured  out  in 
the  sticky  mud. 

Half  way  across  the  field  she  felt  the  thrill 
of  a  great  and  sudden  change.  She  looked  up. 
There  was  no  rainbow.  She  looked  back. 
There  were  no  children.  There  was  nothing  in 
the  world  but  emptiness  and  silence,  no  color 
above,  only  a  cold,  gray  sky;  no  sound,  nor 
sight  on  earth — only  a  vast  solitude. 


91 


LITERARY  CRITICISM 

Apples  lying  long  in  a  cellar  among  coarse 
vegetables  lose  their  native  taste  and  smell. 
Most  things  are  subject  to  the  influence  of 
association.  Though  of  good  family  and 
reputable  history,  certain  words  have  lost  their 
original  characteristics,  and  have  gathered  to 
themselves  a  foreign  flavor  and  a  bad  odor. 
"Politics"  is  of  honorable  origin  and  good  con- 
nection; yet  our  wise  men  are  trying  either  to 
oust  it  from  the  language  or  to  sink  it  irrecover- 
ably, and  to  exalt  to  the  seat  of  honor  the  newly 
invented  "civics,"  making  the  latter  represent 
the  science  of  government,  teach  the  citizen's 
duties  and  responsibilities,  and  inspire  an  hon- 
est, vigorous  patriotism.  Though  this  is  per- 
haps the  only  organized  attempt  on  record  to 
banish  or  degrade  a  word,  it  is  no  new  thing  for 
the  honest  laborer  of  one  generation  to  become 
the  base  villain  of  another. 

"Censure,"  the  impartial  judge  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  stands  by  the  whipping-post  in 

92 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

the  eighteenth.  "Criticism"  slipped  into  the 
judicial  chair  when  "censure"  dropped  out  of 
it; but  "criticism"  has  brought  on  itself  unmeas- 
ured obloquy,  at  one  time  playing  the  part  of 
the  venal  Hastings,  at  another  of  the  bullying 
Coke,  and  again  of  the  murderous  Jeffreys. 

Swift  called  critics  rats,  dogs,  wasps,  and  all 
the  other  bad  names  he  could  think  of.  Steele, 
not  especially  rich  in  the  language  of  invective, 
thought  the  critic  the  silliest  of  mortals. 
Wordsworth  set  criticism  down  as  an  inglorious 
employment.  Even  Scott  had  few  good  words 
for  critics ;  and  Mrs.  Oliphant  calls  them  "born 
conservators  of  the  sneers  of  all  the  ages." 
Shelley  heaped  curses  upon  the  reviewer,  who 
in  the  "Hang,  Draw  and  Quarterly,"  as  the  new 
critical  magazine  of  his  day  was  called,  had 
added  a  pang  to  the  death  throes  of  Keats;  if 
he  had  not,  as  was  at  the  time  generally  be- 
lieved, even  put  an  end  to  the  youthful  poefs 
life. 

"Miserable  man,"  cried  Shelley;  "You,  one 
of  the  meanest,  have  wantonly  defaced  one  of 
the  noblest  specimens  of  the  workmanship  of 
God."  He  goes  on  in  naming  verse : 

93 


LITERARY  CRITICISM 

"Live,  thou,  whose  infamy  is  not  thy  fame! 

Live!    Fear  no  heavier  chastisement  from  me, 
Thou  noteless  blot  on  a  remembered  name! 

But  be  thyself,  and  know  thyself  to  be! 
Remorse  and  self-contempt  shall  cling  to  thee; 

Hot  shame  shall  burn  upon  thy  secret  brow; 

And  like  a  beaten  hound  tremble  thou  shalt— as  now." 

Kirke  White's  young  life,  too,  was  saddened, 
and  perhaps  shortened,  by  criticism  of  the  same 
character. 

Byron  said: 

"  'Tis  strange,  the  mind,  that  very  fiery  particle. 
Should  let  itself  be  snuffed  out  by  an  article." 

Strange  it  is,  but  true,  that  little  airy  noth- 
ings made  by  a  breath  can  stab  with  murderous 
force. 

The  principle  with  these  savage  critics  seems 
to  be  that  none  is  fit  to  live  who  is  not  able  to 
bear  in  the  infancy  of  his  genius  the  windy  top 
of  Mount  Taygetus,  or,  in  the  childhood  of  his 
efforts,  the  blood-drawing  thongs  of  the  priests 
of  Artemis. 

Disgrace  has  been  brought  on  criticism  not 
more  by  its  severity  than  by  its  eccentricity. 
The  vagaries  of  authoritative  opinion  would 
lead  to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  no  standard 
of  excellence.  Atterbury  exhorted  Pope  to  put 
Samson  Agonistes  into  civilized  costume.  For- 

94 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

tunately  for  his  own  fame,  the  little  peppery 
author  of  the  Dunciad  withstood  the  flattering 
proposal  to  reconstruct  that  grand  production 
of  our  most  sublime  poet.  Dryden,  less  modest, 
tagged  rhymes  to  Paradise  Lost.  Johnson  cen- 
sured the  harshness  of  Collins  and  the  obscurity 
of  Gray.  Congreve  could  not  understand  the 
dullness  of  Shakespeare's  women.  Wolcot  ridi- 
culed Dryden's  Alexander's  Feast.  Walpole 
wrote,  "'She  Stoops  to  Conquer*  is  a  very 
wretched  comedy;"  and  he  spoke  of  its  author 
as  "that  silly  Dr.  Goldsmith."  Wordsworth 
held  in  slight  esteem  "Scots  wha  hae  wi  Wal- 
lace bled."  Christopher  North  thought  Ten- 
nyson a  sighing,  wordy  fop.  Hume  declared 
that  the  tragedy  of  Douglas  would  outlive 
Hamlet.  Lord  Loughborough,  when  a  motion 
was  made  in  the  General  Assembly  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church  of  Scotland  to  prohibit 
the  attendance  of  church  members  at  the 
theatre,  asserted  that  four  lines  of  the  tragedy 
of  Douglas  had  in  them  as  much  power  for  good 
as  was  in  all  the  sermons  produced  by  the  genius 
of  the  whole  Scotch  church. 

It  is  fortunate  for  those  who  are  easily  led 

05 


LITERARY  CRITICISM 

that  these  doctors  of  literature  do  not  by  any 
means  agree  among  themselves.  To  Macaulay 
Horace  Walpole  was  a  mere  affected,  preten- 
tious, worldling;  Walpole  was  to  Carlyle  "a. 
radiant  spirit."  Arnold  "assaying"  Byron's 
work: 

"  Examining  it,  and  testing  it,  and  weighing, 
Proved  the  gems  are  pure,  the  gold  endures; 
While  Swinburne  cries  with  an  exceeding  joy, 
'The  stones  are  paste,  and  half  the  gold  alloy.'  " 

Byron  said  that  he  and  Scott,  Wordsworth 
and  Campbell,  were  all  wrong,  one  as  much  as 
another;  that  Rogers  and  Crabbe  alone  of  con- 
temporary poets  were  free  from  the  errors  of 
the  day;  and  that  the  present  and  the  next 
generation  would  finally  be  of  this  opinion. 
Lord  Holland  thought  Crabbe  the  greatest 
genius  of  modern  poets.  Lord  Melbourne  said 
Crabbe  degraded  every  subject  he  handled. 
Neither  Holland  nor  Melbourne  had  any  respect 
for  Wordsworth. 

Lies  always  rot;  but,  says  some  one,  "they 
often  do  their  evil  work  before  they  rot."  There 
is  no  doubt  that  many  a  young  writer  of  the 
first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  dis- 
couraged by  the  forbidding  tone  of  the  review- 

96 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

ers;  and  that  of  those  who  persevered  many 
were  restrained  and  depressed.  The  finger  of 
scorn,  though  it  was  despised  and  defied,  and 
though  it  could  not  crush  Skiddaw,  could  and 
did  make  Wordsworth  egotistical,  self-conscious, 
and  self-assertive,  his  manners  contrasting  very 
unfavorably  with  the  modest,  good-humored 
ease  of  the  readily-appreciated  Scott.  The  great 
poet,  however,  held  on  the  even  tenor  of  his 
way,  guided  by  his  intellectual  conscience,  and 
in  the  end  commanded  respect  and  lifted  his 
readers  to  the  level  of  appreciation.  But  it  was 
the  hoary  head  of  an  old  man  that  was  crowned 
with  honors  on  that  stirring  day  at  Oxford,  too 
late  for  blood  to  burn,  for  cheek  to  flush,  or 
heart  to  beat  high.  He  conquered  a  peace,  and 
for  others  than  himself.  Never  again,  there  is 
reason  to  hope,  can  a  rollicking  set  of  young 
men,  however  keen  their  wits,  venture  name 
and  fame  in  the  excitement  of  vivisection. 
Whetted  knives  and  sardonic  grins  are  out  of 
style  in  literature  as  they  are  in  society. 

Ignorance  is  the  key  to  the  most  serious  mis- 
takes that  have  occurred  in  the  history  of  criti- 
cism. Gray  was  obscure  because  the  readers  of 

97 


LITERARY  CRITICISM 

his  day,  intimate  with  Virgil,  Horace,  and 
Terence,  were  ignorant  of  the  history  of  their 
own  country  and  ignorant  of  their  ignorance. 
Wise  in  their  own  conceit,  puffed  up  with  their 
narrow  learning  and  by  mutual  admiration 
(always  a  dangerous  thing),  these  same  critics 
hounded  poor  Chatterton  on  to  his  death;  and, 
in  destroying  that  desolate  hoy,  robbed  our  his- 
tory, if  the  fruit  is  to  be  guessed  by  the  blos- 
som, of  a  brilliant  chapter  in  its  literature. 
"Ignorance,"  says  a  French  writer,  "which  in 
matters  of  morals  extenuates  the  crime,  is  itself 
in  matters  of  literature  a  crime  of  the  first 
order." 

No  thoughtful  reader  calls  a  book  obscure 
without  much  pondering  and  hesitation.  Goethe 
says,  "He  who  would  reproach  an  author  with 
obscurity,  ought  first  to  make  an  examination 
of  himself  to  be  sure  that  he  is  inwardly  clear. 
A  very  clear  handwriting  may  not  be  legible  by 
twilight."  Coleridge  puts  it  thus :  "When  we 
meet  an  apparent  error  in  a  good  author,  we 
are  to  presume  ourselves  ignorant  of  his  under- 
standing, until  we  are  certain  that  we  under- 
stand his  ignorance." 

98 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

Stupidity  is  one  phase  of  ignorance.  Though 
promised  a  silk  gown  for  each  one  of  Scott's 
novels  she  would  read,  and  though  very  happy 
in  the  possession  or  the  prospect  of  such  attire, 
a  young  lady  who  appeared  very  well  in  society 
declared  after  several  attempts  at  reading  them, 
that  Scott's  novels  were  so  dull  she  could  not 
get  through  one. 

I  have  heard  the  following  bits  of  discourse : 
"I  don't  like  Howells."  "Why?"— "Oh,  I  don't 
know.  I  just  don't  like  him."  "Maybe  you  have 
no  taste  for  that  sort  of  thing.  You  would  rath- 
er read  history,  biography,  essays,  philosophy, 
poetry?" — "Goodness,  no.  I  like  history  some- 
times, a  little.  Dickens'  History  of  England  has 
some  real  good  chapters  in  it.  Don't  you  think 
so  ?  Biography  ?  Yes,  if  it's  interesting.  I  can't 
think  of  any  I  ever  read,  though.  Essays? — 
now  and  then.  Novels? — always."  "Then  you 
ought  to  like  Howells."  "Well,  I  don't." 

"I  can't  bear  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin."— "Why  ?" 
"Oh,  I'm  a  Democrat."  "That  has  as  much  to 
do  with  it  as  the  color  of  your  hair."  "No 
more?  Well,  I  never  read  it,  so  I  can't  give 
any  better  reason." 

99 


LITERARY  CRITICISM 

One  might  as  well  argue  with  butterflies  and 
breezes. 

Prejudice  is  twin-sister  of  ignorance,  and  is 
worse  because  it  has  in  it  a  decided  element  of 
falsehood.  Hume  thought  Home  greater  than 
Shakespeare,  because  Hume  and  Home  and 
Douglas  and  Norval  were  all  Scotchmen.  The 
story  is  told  of  a  certain  Scotch  laird,  that  a 
few  years  after  the  battle  of  Waterloo  he  took 
his  family,  for  economy  and  education,  to 
Tours,  in  France,  where,  about  1832,  he  was 
visited  by  an  old  neighbor  who  had  never  be- 
fore been  on  the  continent.  The  laird  hos- 
pitably entertained  his  friend,  showing  him  the 
curiosities  of  the  city,  until  they  came  to  some- 
thing which,  though  very  interesting,  he  could 
not  explain.  <fDo  ask  this  person  to  tell  us 
about  it,"  urged  the  visitor.  "Na,  na ;  nathing 
of  the  kind,"  said  the  laird,  "for  I  maun  tell 
you  that  I  hate  the  French  people,  and  I  hate 
their  language.  And  hae  I  not  hauden  weel 
aff  not  to  hae  picked  ony  o'  it  up  in  fourteen 
years?"  Prejudice  is  a  stupendous  bulwark 
against  knowledge. 

Ignorance,  stupidity,  caprice,  prejudice,  are 

100 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

Samson's  foxes,  tied  tail  to  tail  with  a  fire 
brand  in  the  midst ;  but  not  for  the  destruction 
of  the  Philistines. 

There  is  no  appreciation  without  sympathy. 
Milton's  most  sublime  conceptions  do  not  make 
the  mathematician  thrill  as  do  the  propositions 
that  lead  with  the  precision  and  exactness  of 
line  and  measure  through  the  ethereal  regions 
from  sphere  to  sphere  and  light  to  light.  The 
mathematician,  therefore,  is  not  the  critic  for 
Paradise  Lost. 

Pope  looked  with  surprise  and  suspicion  on 
the  delight  that  Handel's  music  gave  to  London 
society;  he  asked  Bolingbroke,  a  passionate 
lover  of  music,  if  this  were  not  all  affectation. 
He  that  hath  no  music  in  his  soul  is  not  the 
critic  for  the  Messiah. 

Eepelled  by  his  dislike  of  the  horrible,  Scott 
could  find  nothing  to  enjoy  in  Dante;  neither 
could  the  easy,  joy-loving  soul  of  Leigh  Hunt; 
and  Voltaire  declared  that  the  great  poem  of 
the  Middle  Ages  was  little  better  than  the  cries 
of  a  raving  maniac.  It  is  a  secret,  subtile, 
mystic  cord  that  binds  together  the  souls  of 
writer  and  reader;  or  it  is  one  of  those  aerial 

101 


LITERARY  CRITICISM 

pontoons  De  Quincey  speaks  of,  over  which 
thought  runs  to  thought  and  soul  to  soul.  Per- 
haps many  a  pining  prisoner  heard  the  wander- 
ing minstrel  under  his  tower ;  to  one  alone  did 
the  twang  of  Blondel's  harp  give  hope  and  the 
promise  of  liberty. 

Criticism  is  as  legitimate  as  is  any  kind  of 
weighing,  measuring,  or  judging.  The  tests,  of 
course,  belonging  to  the  soul,  not  to  the  sense, 
are  in  more  danger  of  being  misapplied. 

The  subject  of  a  literary  work  is  worthy  the 
first  consideration;  is,  indeed,  of  supreme  im- 
portance. Many  a  genius  has  only  his  labor 
for  his  pains,  because  the  subject  over  which 
he  has  toiled  is  in  itself  unworthy.  Two  bloody, 
brawny  women  engaged  in  fierce  combat  is  a 
subject  that  degrades  the  brush  and  the  canvas, 
that  is  unworthy  of  the  efforts  of  genius,  and 
that  offends  the  refined  taste,  whatever  may  be 
the  artist's  knowledge  of  anatomy  and  his  skill 
in  depicting  passion.  Blood  and  brawn  are  not 
esthetic.  Phineas  Fletcher's  noble  genius  was 
cast  away  on  "The  Purple  Island."  Swift 
wasted  wit  on  the  grossest  themes.  One  class 
of  novelists  makes  infamous  choice  of  subjects ; 

102 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

another  picks  out  the  narrow  and  the  trivial. 
There  are  preachers  who,  like  the  old  school- 
men, discuss  with  infinite  pains  things  beyond 
the  pale  of  human  knowledge,  or  without  the 
pale  of  human  sympathy.  An  author's  interpre- 
tation, it  is  true,  may  lift  the  common,  though 
never  the  unclean,  into  the  region  of  art; 
Benlinda's  ringlet  forever  shines  a  constella- 
tion; the  Dean's  broomstick  and  the  Philoso- 
pher's whistle  are  among  the  unforgettable; 
and  Cowper's  sofa  is  immortal. 

If  the  author  has  chosen  a  worthy  subject, 
the  next  consideration  is  the  prevailing  and 
pervading  thought.  Sometimes  the  Bible,  or 
Shakespeare,  or  any  author  under  consideration 
may  give  line  or  sentence  in  which  the  motive 
is  embodied.  Though  the  verse  may  not  have 
been  in  his  mind,  it  has  been  suggested  that 
the  inspiring  thought  of  Johnson's  noble  poem, 
"The  Vanity  of  Human  Wishes,"  is,  in  the 
Psalmisf  s  words,  "He  gave  them  their  request, 
but  sent  leanness  into  their  soul."  Tennyson's 
"Palace  of  Art"  is  an  application  to  intellectual 
and  esthetic  selfishness  of  the  story  of  a  certain 
rich  man,  "So  is  he  that  layeth  up  treasure  for 

103 


LITERARY  CRITICISM 

himself,  and  is  not  rich  toward  God/'  It  is 
easy  to  find  a  Scriptural  text  for  each  of  Shakes- 
peare's tragedies.  The  great  dramatist  is  said 
to  comprehend  all  men,  but  there  is  One  who 
knows  still  better  what  is  in  man.  Prof.  Dow- 
den,  who  is  a  sincere  and  an  especially  sympa- 
thetic critic,  says,  "The  happiest  moment  in  the 
hours  of  study  of  a  critic  of  literature  is  when, 
seemingly  by  some  divination,  but  really  the 
result  of  patient  observation  and  thought,  he 
lights  upon  the  central  motive  of  a  great  work." 
When  the  key  is  once  in  hand,  the  analysis  of  a 
literary  work  is  easily  made  and  the  relation  of 
subordinate  parts  to  each  other  and  to  the  whole 
is  easily  discovered.  There  are  readers  who  get 
scattered  ideas  from  a  work  without  being  able 
to  see  its  wholeness,  its  oneness.  They  are  like 
the  measuring  worm  that,  for  all  its  pains,  its 
stretchings  out  and  its  doublings  up,  has  no 
notion  of  the  traversed  sleeve. 

"  In  wit,  as  nature,  what  affects  our  hearts 
Is  not  the  exactness  of  peculiar  parts; 
'Tls  not  a  Up  or  eye  we  beauty  call, 
But  the  joint  force  and  full  result  of  all." 

It  is  certain,  however,  that  one  can  not  appre- 
ciate the  whole  without  a  study  of  the  parts,  nor 

104 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

can  one  appreciate  without  some  knowledge  of 
style.  "Bead  the  rules  of  dramatic  poetry," 
advised  a  friend,  as  James  Ralph  was  setting 
himself  to  work  to  write  a  play.  Ralph  smiled 
and  replied,  "Shakespeare  writ  without  rules." 
Only  to  a  couplet  of  the  Dunciad  does  the  self- 
satisfied  dramatist  owe  such  immortality  as  he 
gained : 

"  Silence,  ye  wolves,  while  Ralph  to  Cynthia  howls. 
And  makes  night  hideous— answer  him,  ye  owls." 

It  is  well  for  lesser  geniuses,  whether  of  poet 
or  critic,  to  "know  the  rules."  Though,  as  it  is 
possible  to  speak  elegant  English  without  being 
able  to  repeat  a  line  of  grammar,  so,  with  the 
rules  at  the  tongue's  end,  one  may  have  neither 
sense  nor  taste  to  make  proper  application. 

But  knowledge  of  style  is  not  enough;  be- 
yond knowledge  is  'the  feeling  that  is  partly  a 
gift,  partly  the  result  of  training.  When 
Thomas  Chalmers  was  three  years  old  he  was 
missed  one  evening  after  dark,  and  was  found 
alone  in  the  nursery,  walking  up  and  down  and 
saying  to  himself,  "0  my  son,  Absalom!  0 
Absalom,  my  son,  my  son!"  Baby  though  he 
was,  he  felt  the  mysterious  beauty  of  style,  and 

105 


LITERARY  CRITICISM 

all  unconsciously  was  developing  nature's  pre- 
cious gift  and  training  himself  to  sway  the 
heart  of  Scotland.  Not  mere  training,  not 
grammar,  nor  logic,  nor  rhetoric,  nor  school, 
can  take  the  place  of  familiarity  with  the  excel- 
lent. To  learn  by  heart  has  a  better  meaning 
than  to  commit  to  memory.  Let  names  and 
dates  and  rules  and  boundary  lines  be  com- 
mitted to  memory,  although  that  treacherous 
faculty  too  often  betrays ;  but  let  the  beautiful 
words  of  the  great  thinkers  be  stamped  forever 
on  the  heart.  The  false  sentiment  will  never 
be  entertained  as  the  true  where  such  lines  as 
these  are  at  home: 

"  And  beauty  born  of  murmuring  sound 
Shall  pass  Into  her  face;" 

Or- 

"  Thy  soul  was  like  a  Star,  and  dwelt  apart; 

Thou  hadst  a  voice  whose  sound  was  like  the  sea; 
Pure  as  the  naked  heavens,  majestic,  free, 
So  didst  thou  travel  on  life's  common  way." 

Or- 

"  Look  how  the  floor  of  heaven 
Is  thick  in-laid  with  patines  of  bright  gold. 
There's  not  the  smallest  orb  which  thou  behold'st 
But  in  his  motion  like  an  angel  sings, 
Still  quiring  to  the  young-eyed  cherubims; 
Such  harmony  is  in  immortal  souls; 
But  whilst  this  muddy  vesture  of  decay 
Doth  grossly  close  it  in,  we  can  not  hear  it." 


106 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

The  heart  in  which  such  lines  ring  and  sing 
is  attuned  to  harmony.  Lofty  sentiments  set  to 
noble  music,  they  not  only  form  a  test  for  liter- 
ary worth,  but  they  are  in  themselves  spiritual 
riches,  which,  told  over  and  over  as  the  miser 
tells  his  gold,  add  a  grace  and  a  glow  to  pleas- 
ure, give  sweetness  to  toil,  softness  to  sorrow, 
and  dignity  to  the  commonness  of  daily  life. 

The  delicate  force  that  lies  in  the  accurate 
use  of  words  is  one  of  the  elements  of  a  good 
style.  It  is  ungrateful  as  well  as  unappreciative 
to  neglect  the  beauties  of  our  mother-tongue. 
Much  of  the  polished  precision  of  the  French 
language  is  due  to  the  determination  and  per- 
sistence of  its  great  authors,  including  its  great 
critics.  An  hour  before  his  death,  Malherbe 
roused  himself  to  reprove  his  nurse  for  the  use 
of  an  incorrect  word.  His  confessor  repri- 
manded him ;  but  the  dying  man  insisted  that 
it  was  his  duty  to  defend  to  the  death  the  purity 
of  his  native  language.  It  is  only  by  the  accu- 
rate use  of  words  that  we  can  communicate 
truth. 

The  weightiest  consideration  as  to  the  value 
of  a  book  lies  in  its  influence  on  character  and 

107 


LITERARY  CRITICISM 

life.  If  it  make  the  world  wider,  life  more 
interesting  and  more  inspiring,  the  temper 
sweeter,  the  heart  more  sincere,  the  manners 
more  gentle ;  if  it  impart  to  the  intellect  some- 
thing higher  and  more  vivid;  if  it  make  one 
stronger,  wiser,  better;  if  it  "console  the 
afflicted,  add  sunshine  to  daylight  by  making 
the  happy  happier;  if  it  teach  the  young  and 
the  gracious  of  every  age  to  see,  to  think,  and 
feel,  and  therefore  to  become  more  actively  and 
securely  virtuous" — if  it  do  all  or  any  of  this, 
then  it  has  high  merit. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  things  to  the 
student  of  literature  is  the  revelation  of  the 
author  in  his  work.  At  what  does  he  laugh? 
Shakespeare  never  laughs  at  sin  nor  at  holiness 
nor  at  frivolity,  and  he  shows  that  the  frivolous 
are  often  the  criminal.  Over  what  does  the 
author  weep?  What  does  he  admire?  What 
does  he  love?  Does  he  look  at  man  and  at 
things  with  fresh  eyes  and  a  fresh  soul?  Are 
his  five  gateways  of  knowledge  wide  and  wide 
open?  The  delight  that  Milton  took  in  forms 
and  colors,  in  the  voices  of  nature,  in  all  melo- 
dies and  harmonies,  in  fragrance,  in  touch  and 

108 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

in  taste,  in  force  and  softness  and  grace,  shows 
a  keen  and  wholesome  vitality. 

So  far  from  detracting  from  the  enjoyment 
of  a  literary  work  close  critical  study  gives  it  a 
zest.  There  is  a  little  affectation  in  Andrew 
Lang's  self-pity.  "It  is  a  cruel  thing,"  he  says, 
"that  where  all  the  rest  love,  you  can  only  ad- 
mire; where  all  the  rest  are  idolaters,  you  may 
not  hend  the  knee,  but  must  stand  apart  and 
beat  upon  your  breast,  observing,  not  adoring — 
a  critic."  More  sincere  and  more  correct  are 
the  words  of  Saintsbury:  "Of  the  critical  in- 
tent, one  thing  can  be  said  with  confidence — 
that  the  presence  and  the  observation  of  it,  so 
far  from  injuring  the  delight  of  reading,  add 
to  that  delight  in  an  extraordinary  degree.  It 
heightens  the  pleasure  in  the  perusal  of  the 
best  by  transforming  a  confused  into  a  rational 
appreciation." 

The  critic's  responsibility  is  threefold — to 
himself,  to  the  reader,  and  to  the  writer.  Slov- 
enly and  false  work  of  any  kind  tells  on  char- 
acter. Superficial  judgment,  hasty  and  ill- 
informed  opinion,  blunt  the  power  of 
discrimination  and  dull  the  sense  of  right. 

109 


LITERARY  CRITICISM 

Always  to  do  one's  best  insures  not  only  peace 
of  mind  but  continued  growth.  The  courage 
of  one's  own  convictions  gives  self-respect  and 
dignity.  The  censure  of  small  critics  may  never 
offend,  and  may  never  mislead;  all  the  same, 
it  should  be  honest. 

The  critic  is  guide  and  interpreter.  Joubert 
says:  "To  accustom  mankind  to  pleasures 
which  depend  neither  upon  the  bodily  appe- 
tites nor  upon  money  by  giving  them  a  taste 
for  the  things  of  mind,  seems  to  me,  in  fact, 
the  one  proper  fruit  which  nature  has  meant 
our  literary  productions  to  have."  The  critic 
directs  attention  to  the  beautiful,  the  noble, 
and  the  good.  He  points  out  meanings,  excel- 
lences, glories;  opens  out  mysteries;  shows, 
too,  blunders,  blots,  and  blemishes  that  the 
inexperienced  and  the  untraveled  in  the  world 
of  books  might  not  for  himself  discover.  He 
does  for  the  reader  what  the  sister  of  nature's 
great  poet  did  for  him. 

"  She  gave  me  eyes,  she  gave  me  ears; 

***** 
A  heart,  the  fountain  of  sweet  tears; 
And  love,  and  thought,  and  joy." 

Every  traveler  knows  the  sickness  of  the  heart 
that  comes  from  learning  too  late  what  he  has 
110 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

missed.  Perhaps  his  profane  thoughts  were 
wandering  to  trifling  personal  affairs  while  he 
stood  all  unawares  on  places  sacred  to  God  love 
and  to  human  love — the  very  spot,  perhaps, 
where  the  venerable  Latimer  lifted  up  a  cheer- 
ful voice  amid  fagot  and  flame;  or  where  the 
beautiful  Mary  and  the  princely  Maximilian 
exchanged  troth  and  kisses  in  the  faces  of  the 
loving  and  loyal  city,  and  so  turned  the  current 
of  European  history.  A  guide  or  a  guide-book 
saves  the  uninformed  traveler  (and  who  can  be 
informed  of  everything?)  such  heart-pangs  of 
regret.  The  critic,  I  repeat,  is  a  guide. 

We  hold  in  grateful  remembrance  the  hand 
that  planted  the  tree  that  shades  our  door,  or 
trained  the  vine  that  yields  us  grapes,  and  we 
owe  grateful  reverence  and  love  to  him  who 
made  for  us  a  good  book — "who  gave  us  nobler 
loves  and  nobler  cares."  We  owe  nothing  for 
the  "books  that  are  no  better  than  wolves  in 
sheep's  clothing."  We  owe  it  to  none  to  call 
ugliness,  beauty;  awkwardness,  grace;  false- 
hood, truth,  or  wrong  in  any  way,  right.  Black 
is  black,  crooked  is  crooked,  wrong  is  wrong, 
whatever  the  reason,  wherever  the  place. 

Ill 


LITERARY  CRITICISM 

It  is  not  necessarily  presumption  for  the 
small  to  measure  and  judge  the  great.  In  one 
of  Tolstoi's  novels  a  handsome  old  peasant  is 
asked  what  he  thinks  of  the  Emperor's  procla- 
mation of  war  about  which  everybody  is  talking. 
"Why  should  we  think  ?"  he  answers  smilingly ; 
"our  Emperor  will  think  for  us.  He  knows 
what  to  do."  In  the  Empire  of  Letters  any- 
body who  claims  any  sort  of  citizenship  must 
think.  It  is  not  an  empire,  it  is  a  republic,  and 
all  have  the  franchise.  That  only  a  Shakes- 
peare can  fully  and  perfectly  measure  a  Shakes- 
peare is  no  reason  why  any  one  may  not  make  a 
study  of  Shakespeare,  and,  so  far  as  he  can, 
measure  and  master  the  mighty  work  of  the 
mightiest  of  minds.  The  student's  failure  may 
mark  his  own  littleness,  but  the  effort  tends  to 
lift  him  above  and  beyond  his  narrow  limita- 
tions. 

"Their  works  drop  groundward,"  says  Andrea 
del  Sarto,  of  the  artists,  who,  inferior  to  him 
in  workmanship,  had  still  an  inspiration  to 
which  he  was  a  stranger, 

"  Their    works   drop   groundward,    but  themselves,   I 

know, 
Reach  many  a  time  a  heaven  that's  shut  to  me." 

112 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

The  greatest  of  writers  would  not  smile,  un- 
less with  happy  pride,  to  see  the  unpracticed 
student  reaching  toward  his  thought,  and  try- 
ing to  discover  the  secret  of  his  higher  life. 
"A  man's  reach  should  exceed  his  grasp." 


113 


PERSONAL  LITERATURE  OF  THE  VICTORIAN   AGE 

[This  essay  and  the  one  following,  on  "John  Fos- 
ter," are  the  only  ones  completed  of  a  series  begun 
by  Miss  Merrill  during  the  last  year  of  her  life.  The 
two  were  published  at  the  time  in  the  Indianapolis 
News.] 


In  beginning  a  series  of  papers  on  English 
literature,  it  seems  proper  to  confine  myself  to 
one  period,  and,  for  a  time,  to  one  class  in  that 
period. 

There  has  been  no  narrowness  in  the  taste  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  History  nourishes  as 
it  never  before  nourished;  science,  in  ceasing 
to  be  the  antithesis  of  poetry  and  the  antagonist 
of  religion,  has  become  popular  and  familiar; 
biography  fills  libraries;  essays  occupy  many 
pages  in  the  magazines,  and,  to  the  world,  still 
crying,  "Tell  me  a  story!"  a  thousand  pens 
respond,  "Here  is  your  story !" 

In  this  century,  too,  is  an  eagerness  to  read 
actual  life,  life  more  real  than  the  realistic 
novel,  more  real  than  biography  itself;  and  a 

114 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

generous  consent  accords  to  the  world  a  tran- 
script of  the  actual  in  the  form  of  private  let- 
ters and  unstudied  work  of  the  kind — really  not 
work,  but  literary  play.  It  is  well.  It  may  be 
gossip,  but  gossip  is  not  the  worst  thing! 
Words,  like  characters,  usually  retain,  through 
the  vicissitudes  of  their  career,  something  of 
their  original  stamp.  "Godsib"  means  a  rela- 
tion, not  a  relation  in  blood,  but  in  God;  and 
the  godsib,  or  gossip,  in  the  first  use  of  the  word, 
assumed  a  sacred  and  tender  responsibility  at 
the  beautiful  rite  of  baptism.  It  therefore  has 
claim  to  respectability  in  so  far  as  it  has  but  a 
neighborly,  sympathetic  interest  in  the  affairs 
of  others.  In  its  first  and  proper  meaning,  it 
is  distinct  from  scandal  and  free  from  frivolity. 
Personal  literature,  such  as  memoirs,  letters 
and  diaries,  is  a  fine  kind  of  gossip.  It  touches 
the  springs  of  humor,  pathos  and  the  kindly 
curiosity  that  is  one  form  of  the  love  of  human- 
ity. It  gratifies  the  desire  to  know  the  concrete. 
Its  very  unconsciousness  of  being  literature 
gives  it  the  charm  of  artlessness.  When  you  see 
the  author  at  his  desk,  at  his  fireside,  when  you 
hear  his  table-talk,  when  in  silence  and  sym- 

115 


PERSONAL  LITERATURE  OF  THE  VICTORIAN  AGE 

pathy  you  read  his  intimate  letters  you  sun 
yourself  in  his  friendship.  The  soul  has  its 
friendships  quite  dissevered  from  time  and 
space.  Tears  came  into  the  eyes  of  Dr.  Thomas 
Arnold  once  when  he  heard  John  the  Apostle 
disparaged  in  favor  of  St.  Paul.  He  would  not 
diminish  the  glory  of  Paul,  but  he  loved  John. 
Until  lately,  English  literature  was  almost 
devoid  of  epistolary  correspondence,  of  any- 
thing, indeed,  that  savored  of  personal  dis- 
closure. English  nature  seemed  too  reticent  or 
too  proud,  too  cold  or  too  indifferent  to  let  the 
public  get  a  peep  behind  English  walls. 
Though  it  might  be  all  dust  and  desert  without, 
all  roses  and  fountains  within,  the  tired  way- 
farer should  have  no  whiff  of  fragrance  or  drop 
of  coolness.  Added  to  this  reserve  was  an  ex- 
treme carelessness  in  regard  to  the  preservation 
of  papers.  Letters  passing  from  hand  to  hand 
were  worn  to  rags,  and  the  more  bulky  forms  of 
this  literature,  if  they  escaped  fire  and  sword, 
division  of  families,  removals,  and  the  all- 
destroying  bookworm,  mildew,  and  dust,  were 
hidden,  perhaps  lost,  in  a  dark  shelf  of  an  un- 
explored library.  But  libraries  have  been 

116 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

searched,  and  their  treasures  exposed.  The 
islanders  have  grown  cosmopolitan.  No  longer 
satisfied  with  a  slightly  contemptuous  enjoy- 
ment of  French  wit,  veracity  and  candor,  they 
have,  within  the  last  hundred  years,  not  only 
published  private  papers,  which  they  have 
drawn  from  obscure  corners  and  crannies,  they 
are  now  handing  out  to  the  lovers  of  the  past 
and  of  the  curious  their  own  reminiscences. 
And  Americans,  though  possessing  even  a 
greater  share  of  Anglo-Saxon  aversion  to  pub- 
licity, because  of  greater  sensitiveness  to  ridi- 
cule, arising  possibly  from  vanity,  added  to  a 
sort  of  childlike  pain  and  anger  at  being 
touched — even  Americans  have  yielded  to  the 
current.  There  is  something  of  fashion  -in 
thought  as  well  as  in  dress.  A  thing  once  be- 
gun and  commended  goes  on  with  increasing 
force. 

The  oldest  series  of  English  letters  that  we 
have  are  the  Paston  letters.  According  to  Hal- 
lam,  the  historian  of  the  middle  ages,  these 
letters  supply  a  precious  link  in  the  chain  of 
the  moral  history  of  England.  John  Selden, 
eminent  scholar,  lawyer  and  patriot  of  the  sev- 

117 


PERSONAL  LITERATURE  OF  THE  VICTORIAN  AGE 

enteenth  century,  says  in  his  grave  table-talk: 
"Take  a  straw  and  throw  it  up  into  the  air. 
You  shall  see  by  that  which  way  the  wind  is, 
which  you  shall  not  do  by  casting  up  a  stone. 
More  solid  things  do  not  show  the  complexion 
of  the  times  so  well." 

The  fifteenth  century,  notwithstanding  the 
four  great  events  that  give  it  a  fame  beyond 
other  centuries — the  invention  of  printing,  the 
discovery  of  America,  the  flight  of  learning 
from  the  falling  and  fallen  Greek  empire,  and 
the  rise  of  the  Medici,  generous  patrons  of  art 
and  learning — was  everywhere  a  time  of  tumult 
and  turmoil,  and,  so  far  as  thought  is  concerned, 
it  was  a  day  of  small  things.  Especially  was 
this  the  case  in  England,  which  was  cruelly 
trampled  and  torn  by  the  wars  of  the  Roses  and 
other  disturbances  connected  with  the  disputed 
royal  succession.  In  the  century  after  Chaucer 
one  really  great  English  book  was  written.  It  is 
in  this  dark  hour  before  dawn  that  we  have  the 
"precious  link." 

Nearly  five  hundred  years  ago  lived  a  family, 
Paston  by  name,  that  had  made  its  way  up  from 
serfdom  in  the  peasantry  to  the  possession  of 

118 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

lands,  learning,  position  and  titles.  The  thou- 
sand letters  of  this  family  that  have  come  to 
light  were  written  from  1424  to  1506,  and  were 
published  at  intervals  between  1787  and  1875. 
They  take  us  at  once  into  the  family  life,  show- 
ing us  the  boy's  horseback  journey  to  Eton  with 
servant  and  bandbox,  his  attempts  at  Latin 
verse,  and  his  very  boyish  appeal  to  an  elder 
brother,  whom  he  addresses  as  "Bight  Keverend 
and  Worshipful,"  for  money,  new  clothes  and 
a  holiday.  They  also  show  the  girl  at  home, 
knocked  down  and  beaten  black  and  blue  be- 
cause she  is  loath  to  marry  the  man  her  father 
has  selected  for  his  son-in-law.  Except  some 
slight  sympathy  for  a  dispossessed  or  murdered 
statesman,  they  evince  little  interest  in  public 
affairs,  show  little  public  spirit,  no  elevation  of 
thought  and  feeling,  and  much  activity  in  legal 
squabbles,  with  a  surprising  knowledge  of  law. 
Something  of  this  last  we  have  in  the  English- 
man's respect  for  law,  though  the  knowledge  of 
the  Pastons  seems  chiefly  to  have  been  used  in 
order  to  gain  or  retain  possession  of  land. 

On  the  whole,  these  letters  give  an  exceed- 
ingly interesting,  though  not  beautiful,  picture 

119 


PERSONAL  LITERATURE  OF  THE  VICTORIAN  AGE 

of  family  life  before  improvements  in  agricul- 
ture and  manufactures,  increase  of  commerce, 
prevalence  of  education  and  means  of  travel, 
both  at  home  and  abroad,  had  developed  mod- 
ern comfort,  intelligence  and  refinement.  It 
may  be  a  question,  however,  whether  the  Pas- 
tons  reflect  the  character  of  the  times  in  which 
they  flourished  or  show  the  persistence  of  cer- 
tain family  traits. 

All  these  people,  so  long  gone,  all  who  have 
left  a  record  written  with  fingers  that  have  long 
been  dust,  preach  us  sermons,  however  careless 
their  words,  however  they  may  have  thought 
only  of  themselves.  They  did  not  mean  to 
write  for  us,  but  they  can  not  escape  the  law 
written  in  bone  and  blood,  as  well  as  in  Revela- 
tion, "No  man  liveth  unto  himself." 

Even  if  their  letters  are  destroyed,  they  stamp 
their  race  with  their  vices  or  their  virtues.  The 
last  of  the  Pastons,  a  selfish  and  dissolute  Earl 
of  Yarmouth,  died  in  1732. 

Here  and  there  has  escaped  the  hazards  of 
time  and  chance  and  change  a  letter  that  bears 
news  of  the  envied  occupants  of  high  places. 
For  some  hundreds  of  years  near  the  throne 

120 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

meant  near  the  scaffold,  and  proud  hearts  bent 
themselves  to  humble  petitions. 

When  life  was  held  by  a  thread  which  the 
tyrant's  breath  could  break,  it  was  as  dear  as 
it  is  now;  perhaps  dearer.  That  is  most  pre- 
cious which  may  be  gone  in  a  moment.  Of  all 
the  letters  written  by  lordly  men  who  laid 
their  heads  on  the  block,  but  one  remains  that 
shames  the  memory  of  the  writer.  Lady  Jane 
Grey,  girl  though  she  was,  walked  bravely  to 
her  doom ;  the  letter  of  her  father-in-law,  Duke 
of  Northumberland,  is  the  letter  of  an  abject, 
cringing  coward.  Letters,  as  much  as  conduct, 
and  more  than  spoken  words,  show  character. 

Many  of  the  diaries,  autobiographies  and  let- 
ters, written  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries,  not  published,  as  a  general  thing, 
until  the  nineteenth,  are  charming  reading. 
One  could  scarcely  spend  a  more  delightful 
hour  than  with  Lucy  Hutchinson,  or  sweet  and 
wise  Dorothy  Osborne.  Pepys  and  Evelyn, 
Fanny  Burney,  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montague, 
Mary  Granville  Delany,  Cowper,  are  as  ready 
to  amuse,  entertain,  teach,  as  if  they  reached  us 
a  warm,  living  hand  of  welcome.  And  Horace 

121 


PERSONAL  LITERATURE  OF  THE  VICTORIAN  AGE 

Walpole  is  not  so  bad,  spite  of  flippancy,  cyni- 
cism and  worldliness.  He  liked  Hannah  More, 
and  one  must  have  a  degree  of  goodness  to  like 
the  good  Hannah.  He  was  a  friend  of  America 
when  the  vulgar  English  mind  had  only  scorn 
for  the  colonials ;  he  was  faithful  to  the  inter- 
ests of  his  wretch  of  a  nephew,  and  he  took 
pains  with  his  letters,  for  which  lovers  of  wit 
should  he  grateful.  It  is  a  shame,  after  enjoy- 
ing the  privileges  of  desk  and  fireside,  to  turn 
and  look  at  the  entertainer. 

No  letters  equal  Charles  Lamb's;  but  Lamb 
and  his  contemporaries,  as  well  as  all  who  went 
before  them,  not  belonging  to  the  Victorian 
Age,  are  not  to  be  considered  here. 


122 


CATHARINE  MKKRILL 

AT    THE    AGE    OF    TWENTY-SEVEN 


JOHN   FOSTER— 1790-1843 

[This  and  the  preceding  essay  belong  to  an  Incom- 
plete series  begun  by  Miss  Merrill  during  the  last  year 
of  her  life.] 

II 

"A  lumbering  wagon  laden  with  gold."  It  is 
in  these  words  that  Robert  Hall  describes  his 
great  fellow-laborer  in  the  Baptist  church — a 
church  which,  according  to  the  view  of  other 
denominations,  "was  made  up  of  extremes,  one 
or  two  mountains  and  a  good  many  molehills." 
John  Foster  was  one  of  the  mountains.  He  may 
be  classed  with  the  Victorians  in  right  of  the 
last  six  years  of  his  life,  and  because  the  world 
was  slow  in  making  his  acquaintance.  It  may 
be  added  now  that  the  world  is  ready  to  hand 
him  over  to  oblivion.  Yet  he  should  be  remem- 
bered if  only  for  his  "Essay  on  Decision  of 
Character." 

Nobody  would  select  his  letters  or  his  diary 
as  models.  They  are  too  unworldly,  too  im- 
personal, too  solid,  too  intellectual,  too  finished 

123 


JOHN  FOSTER 

and  formal,  and  too  like  the  eighteenth  century 
in  style.  They  have  no  lightness  of  touch,  no 
playfulness,  no  sparkle  of  any  kind.  But  they 
are  golden  in  originality  of  thought  and  illus- 
tration, in  discrimination  of  character,  in  solid 
sense,  in  sincerity,  in  the  highest  wisdom,  in  an 
intense  love  of  nature,  and  a  passionate  love  and 
pity  for  mankind. 

John  Foster  was  born  in  the  parish  of  Hali- 
fax, in  Yorkshire.  His  parents  were  old;  they 
seem  always  to  have  heen  old,  perhaps  as  the 
result  of  lives  of  extreme  frugality  and  toil. 
They  were  grave,  reserved  and  cold  in  manner, 
industrious  and  righteous,  meditative  and 
prayerful,  feeling  their  obligations  both  to  this 
world  and  the  next.  Yet  the  father  seemed  to 
see  something  beyond  the  common  in  his  little 
son,  and  sometimes  unbent  so  much  as  to  put 
his  hand  on  the  head  of  the  four-year-old  boy 
and  say,  "This  head  will  one  day  learn  Greek." 
The  child  was  taught  implicit,  unquestioning 
obedience,  and  very  early  to  do  his  share  of  farm 
labor  and  weaving.  He  was  lonely,  dreamy  and 
silent.  Words,  of  which  he  did  not  hear  many, 
had  a  strange  fascination  for  him.  He  brooded 

124 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

over  their  sense,  and  over  their  sound  when  he 
did  not  know  their  sense.  The  word  "chal- 
cedony" attracted  him,  the  names  of  ancient 
heroes  were  music  to  his  ears.  "Night" 
brought  up  suggestions  of  horror,  and  the  time 
of  going  to  bed  was  an  awful  season  of  each 
day.  The  word  "hermit"  would,  in  a  moment, 
transport  him  to  a  solitary  hut,  surrounded  by 
trees  and  rocks  and  streams,  with  a  garden  of 
radishes  and  an  aged  man  in  the  door. 

Among  the  few  books  in  the  house  the  live- 
liest seems  to  have  been  Young's  "Night 
Thoughts."  The  boy  lived  the  poem,  often 
pondering  over  the  formal  lines.  These  in- 
fluences gave  him  a  sort  of  aloofness  of  manner 
and  feeling  which  remained  with  him  through 
life.  His  language,  when  he  did  talk,  was  that 
of  a  book — of  Young  or  of  some  volume  of 
sermons.  The  neighbors  called  him  an  old- 
fashioned  boy.  Later  in  his  life  it  is  said  that 
none  who  knew  him  could  avoid  being  im- 
pressed by  "the  extraordinary  unworldliness 
which  pervaded  his  character  and  imparted  to 
it  an  indescribable  dignity."  Thus  the  solitari- 
ness of  his  childhood  had  its  favorable  side.  By 

125 


JOHN  FOSTER 

a  neighboring  clergyman  the  boy  was  prepared 
for  a  small  Baptist  college,  the  immense  ad- 
vantages of  the  great  English  universities  being 
meanly  denied  to  dissenters.  He  became  a 
preacher  in  the  denomination  in  which  he  had 
been  reared,  and  had  pastorates  in  the  small 
villages  of  Frome  and  Downend. 

He  sometimes  had  but  forty  hearers  to  ser- 
mons that  were  full  of  noble  thoughts.  And  of 
these  forty  some  were  so  ignorant  as  to  think 
their  preacher  spoke  in  riddles.  After  several 
years,  on  account  of  an  affection  of  the  throat, 
he  confined  himself  to  writing  essays  and  criti- 
cal reviews. 

He  married  a  woman  whom  he  dearly  loved. 
He  had  five  children,  the  oldest  of  whom,  an 
only  son,  died  at  the  age  of  fifteen.  It  is  said 
that  while  he  was  dying  the  boy  looked  with 
amazement  at  his  father's  agonized  face,  and 
exclaimed,  "Why,  father,  I  didn't  know  you 
loved  me  so !"  It  is  a  pitiful  story.  I  hope  it 
•is  not  true.  But  who  is  so  blest,  or,  it  may  be, 
so  cursed,  as  not  to  be  torn  by  remorse  when 
a  beloved  one  goes  away  forever  ? 

In  one  of  his  letters  he  speaks  of  the  pleasure 

126 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

he  has  in  his  children's  noisy  play;  in  another, 
of  the  sweetness  of  returning  to  his  home  after 
a  few  days'  absence. 

"I  most  entirely  believe  that  no  man  on 
earth  has  a  wife  more  fondly  affectionate,  more 
anxious  to  promote  his  happiness  or  more  de- 
pendent for  her  own  on  his  tenderness  for  her." 

He  is  cautious,  however,  and  after  speaking 
with  confidence  of  his  future  happiness,  he 
adds,  "but  I  am  old  enough  to  be  well  aware 
how  many  people  who  are  wiser  than  myself 
would  laugh  at  the  romantic  cast  of  such  a  pre- 
sumption, and  shall  therefore  keep  the  notion 
to  myself." 

Twenty-four  years  of  married  life  only  in- 
creased his  affection  and  esteem.  He  ascribed 
to  his  wife's  influence  the  mental  improvement 
that  he  had  made  in  these  years,  and  declared 
with  truth  that  she  gave  him  the  most  of  the 
happiness  that  had  been  his. 

His  reserve  continued  to  the  end  to  be  a  sort 
of  iron  band  about  his  life.  After  the  death 
of  his  wife  he  wrote,  "If  conventional  usages 
did  not  come  obstinately  in  the  way,  my  in- 
finite preference  would  be  that  the  last  offices 

127 


JOHN  FOSTER 

should  be  performed  at  the  midnight  hour  in 
perfect  silence,  and  with  no  attendance  besides 
the  parties  interested." 

When  the  last  hour  came  to  him  it  found 
him  alone.  If  there  was  a  death  struggle  none 
witnessed  it.  On  the  night  before  he  had  posi- 
tively forbidden  entrance  to  his  room.  About 
six  o'clock  in  the  morning  a  kind  old  servant 
entered  on  tip-toe.  He  was  dead.  "His  arms 
were  gently  extended  and  his  countenance  was 
as  tranquil  as  that  of  a  person  in  a  peaceful 
sleep." 

As  a  critic,  John  Foster  was  as  clear,  definite 
and  decided  in  his  letters  and  diary  as  in  the 
criticisms,  written  for  publication.  He  did  no 
slovenly  work. 

Of  Shakespeare  he  writes :  "He  had  percep- 
tions of  every  kind;  he  could  think  every  way. 
His  might  be  compared  to  that  monster  the 
prophet  saw  in  his  vision,  which  had  eyes  all 
over." 

Of  Burke :  "His  sentences  are  pointed  to  the 
end — instinct  with  pungent  sense  to  the  last 
syllable.  They  are  like  a  charioteer's  whip; 
which  not  only  has  a  long  and  effective  lash, 

128 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

but  cracks  and  inflicts  a  still  smarter  sensation 
at  the  end.  They  are  like  some  serpents  of 
which  I  have  heard  it  vulgarly  said  that  their 
life  is  fiercest  in  the  tail." 

Of  Coleridge:  "He  is  the  poet  that  will 
overstep  all  his  contemporaries.  *  *  *  He 
is  a  marvelously  original  and  subtle  thinker. 
*  *  *  It  is  wonderful  in  looking  back 
over  a  few  hours  of  his  conversation  to  think 
what  a  quantity  of  original  speculation  he  had 
uttered  in  language  incomparably  rich  in  orna- 
ment and  new  combinations." 

One  of  Foster's  friends  says  of  him  that  with- 
out apparent  consciousness  he  was  often  on  the 
edge  of  wit.  He  gets  over  the  edge;  though 
his  wit  is  always  of  a  grave  kind.  He  once 
called  the  world  an  untamed  and  untamable 
animal.  "But  you  are  a  part  of  it,"  retorted 
a  gentleman.  "Yes,  sir,  a  hair  upon  the  tail." 

The  piety  of  Alexander,  Emperor  of  Russia, 
was  often  spoken  of  in  English  public  meet- 
ings with  approval  and  admiration  as  if  there 
were  peculiar  merit  in  the  acknowledgment  of 
his  Maker  by  so  great  a  model.  "He  must  be  a 
very  good  man,"  said  one  of  these  ardent  ad- 

129 


JOHN  FOSTER 

mirers  to  Foster.  "Yes,  sir/'  was  the  reply,  "a 
very  good  man,  very  devout;  no  doubt  he  said 
grace  before  he  swallowed  Poland." 

The  following  sentences  approach  wit  in  their 
condensation  of  good  sense  and  their  epigram- 
matic form: 

"Many  an  enamored  pair  have  courted  in 
poetry  and  after  marriage  lived  in  prose." 

"Her  mind  is  a  wardrobe,  in  which  hangs 
nothing  but  grudges." 

"Her  passions  are  like  a  little  whirlwind — 
round  and  round,  moving,  active,  but  still 
here." 

"He  is  vigilant  without  suspicion  and  dis- 
criminating without  fastidiousness." 

"His  diction  is  not  the  clothing  of  his  senti- 
ments— it  is  the  skin,  and  to  alter  the  language 
would  be  to  flay  the  sentiments  alive." 

"He  is  neither  vulgar  nor  genteel,  nor  any 
compound  of  these  two  kinds  of  vulgarity.  His 
manners  are  a  part  of  his  soul,  like  the  style  of 
a  writer  of  genius.  He  makes  you  think  neither 
of  clown  nor  of  gentleman — but  of  man." 

"The  person  who  gives  us  most  the  idea  of 
ample  being  interests  us  most." 

130 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

"If  a  Frenchman  and  an  Englishman  were 
shown  a  dozen  persons  and  under  the  necessity 
of  choosing  one  of  them  to  talk  an  hour  with, 
the  Frenchman  would  choose  the  first  in  the 
row  and  the  Englishman  the  last." 

"Some  people's  religion  is  for  want  of  sense ; 
if  they  had  sense  they  would  have  no  religion, 
for  their  religion  is  no  more  than  prejudice — 
superstition." 

"Spent  part  of  an  hour  in  the  company  of 
a  handsome  young  woman  and  a  friendly  little 
cat;  I  could  more  easily  make  society  of  the 
cat." 

"Why  should  a  man  read  an  inferior  book 
at  the  very  time  he  might  read  one  of  the 
highest  order?" 

"One  of  the  strongest  characteristics  of 
genius  is  the  power  of  lighting  its  own  fire." 

"You  have  not  sufficiently  a  grand  command- 
ing principle  of  seriousness  to  persuade  and 
harmonize  the  total  of  your  habits." 

Certain  ladies  he  designates  as  "mere  am- 
bulating blocks  for  millinery/' 

Of  a  very  bad  child  he  says:  "I  never  saw 
so  much  essence  of  devil  in  so  small  a  vessel." 

131 


JOHN  FOSTER 

Foster  took  a  warm  interest  in  political 
affairs,  and  was  always  on  the  side  of  progress. 
In  1830  he  writes:  "Very  great  changes  have 
been  done  in  recent  times.  America  set  free; 
Greece,  humiliation  of  the  Mohammedan  em- 
pire; the  Catholic  emancipation,  and  a  great 
part  of  the  world  put  in  a  state  of  mobility; 
ominous,  all  may  hope,  of  prodigious  and  ac- 
celerated changes." 

Foster's  studies  of  individual  character  are 
remarkable  for  grasp  of  comprehension  and 
sharpness  of  discrimination.  I  never  saw  a 
more  careful  and  complete  delineation  of  a 
child  than  his  of  a  little  girl  three  years  old. 

Exceedingly  interested  as  he  was  in  the 
things  of  this  world,  his  thoughts  loved  better 
to  dwell  on  the  other  and  higher  life.  He 
strove  to  fit  himself  and  he  strove  to  fit  others 
for  that  ideal,  heavenly  good. 

Archbishop  Whately  says:  "There  are  some 
minds  which  seem  so  thoroughly  to  fit  into  this 
life  and  to  be  so  satisfied  with  it  that  we  almost 
are  tempted  to  doubt  whether  they  have  any  of 
the  elements  of  a  future  existence.  There  are 
others  again  who  make  themselves  so  little  at 

132 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

home  in  this  world  that  the  wonder  is  how 
they  came  here;  they  seem  to  be  the  natural 
nurslings  of  immortality,  and  their  soul  con- 
tinually flaps  its  wings  against  its  earthly  pris- 
on-house, like  a  caged  eagle.  So  it  was  with 
John  Foster.  In  thinking  of  him  transplanted 
as  he  now  is  to  a  more  congenial  world,  our 
first  involuntary  reflection  is  that  he  is  free; 
that  his  spirit  has  put  off  its  burden,  and  is 
escaped  from  what  to  him  was  little  better 
than  a  dungeon."  As  has  been  shown,  this  is 
not  quite  fair.  John  Foster  was  extraordinarily 
interested  in  this  world,  in  its  natural  scenery, 
in  its  animals,  and  especially  in  the  character 
and  destiny  on  the  earth  of  humanity,  and  He 
loved  his  friends  with  a  very  great  love.  He 
was  a  great  soul. 

To  read  his  thoughts,  to  understand  his  senti- 
ments, to  appreciate  his  efforts  to  better  hu- 
manity, simply  to  come  near  him,  as  near  as  his 
peculiar  nature  allows,  is  elevating.  It  is 
well  to  touch  the  hem  of  the  garment  of  those 
who  are  even  imperfectly  great  and  good. 


THE  CHILD   IN   ENGLISH   LITERATURE 

On  a  certain  occasion  when  pride  and  ambi- 
tion seemed  to  be  getting  the  better  of  the  poor 
men  who  followed  Jesus,  He  called  to  Him, 
and  took  in  His  arms  a  little  child  and  said 
unto  them,  ''Whosoever  shall  humble  himself  as 
this  little  child,  the  same  is  greatest  in  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven."  Of  this  blessed  little 
one,  who  on  this  one  occasion  served  as  a  living 
text,  we  know  nothing  more.  He  may  have 
lived  on  to  weary  age;  he  may  have  ended  his 
life's  little  story  in  the  one  scene;  he  still  for- 
ever looks  out  from  the  printed  page,  a  type  and 
vision  of  the  meekness  that  shall  inherit  the 
earth  in  the  coming  golden  age. 

It  is  a  characteristic  of  the  Bible  that  chil- 
dren are  often  recorded  as  actors  in  the  great 
world-drama.  The  wild  outcast  of  the  desert, 
with  his  forlorn  mother;  the  gentle  son  of  the 
haughty  Sara,  the  quarrelsome  twins,  the  fa- 
vored boy  with  his  garment  of  many  colors — 
the  youngest  of  the  twelve  brothers  and  the 

134 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

darling  whose  loss  would  bring  the  father's 
gray  hairs  with  sorrow  to  the  grave;  the  fair 
infant  weeping  in  his  cradle  of  bulrushes,  the 
little  prophet,  whose  lonely  yet  happy  mother 
yearly  made  him  a  pretty  coat  and  a  loving 
visit;  the  faithful  shepherd  boy  guarding  his 
flock  and  singing  to  his  harp  under  the  stars, 
the  prince — king  by  right  of  inheritance — hid- 
ing from  his  cruel  grandmother;  the  resolute 
boys  who,  in  a  luxurious  court,  trained  them- 
selves to  frugality  and  hardship;  the  high- 
spirited  pupil  of  Gamaliel,  the  docile  child 
whose  fidelity  to  his  training  and  to  ancestral 
character  throws  a  halo  round  the  names  of 
Lois  and  Eunice;  the  wondrous  Boy  who  dis- 
coursed with  the  great  scholars  in  the  Temple, 
and  amazed  them; — all  these  and  others  have 
their  story  told  in  the  Scriptures. 

The  Divine  Man  calls  repeated  attention  to 
the  child,  showing  always  that  it  should  be  the 
highest  ambition  of  manhood  to  regain  the  in- 
nocence of  childhood.  That  the  charm  of  these 
stories  was  felt  and  acknowledged  is  proved  by 
baptismal  names  descending  with  the  genera- 
tions. Yet  men  of  genius  received  no  suggestion 

135 


THE  CHILD  IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

from  their  general  acceptance,  and  did  not  busy 
their  thoughts  with  the  state  of  childhood. 

Chaucer,  the  most  artless  of  poets,  a  lover  of 
humanity  and  nature,  has  one  child  hero,  St. 
Hugh  of  Lincoln,  seven  years  old.  He  had 
learned  from  an  elder  boy  in  the  school  to  sing 
"Alma  Eedemptoris  Mater" — (0  nursing 
mother  of  Jesus). 

"  The  swetnesse  hath  his  herte  perced  so 

Of  Cristes  mooder,  that  to  hire  to  preye 
He  kan  nat  stynte  of  syngyng  by  the  weye." 

Unfortunately,  the  way  to  school  led  through 
Jewry,  and  there  little  Hugh  was  murdered  and 
his  body  thrown  into  a  pit.  He  was  the  only 
child  of  his  mother,  and  she  was  a  widow. 

"  This  poure  wydwe  awaiteth  al  that  nygth 
After  hir  litel  child,  but  he  cam  noght," 

At  last  the  boy  is  found,  dead,  but  still  sing- 
ing, 

"  And,  for  the  worship  of  his  mooder  deere, 

Yet  may  I  synge,  O  Alma,  loude  and  cleere." 

It  is  strange  that  with  this  fair  beginning 
there  should  be  no  more  stories  of  children  for 
nearly,  or  quite,  two  hundred  years.  The  little 
martyr's  history  is  repeated  with  variations,  and 
in  an  old  tale  a  boy  with  a  magic  mantle  ap- 

136 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

pears ;  but  the  mantle,  not  the  boy,  is  the  point 
of  interest.  Ballads  were  made,  and  were  sung 
by  high  and  low,  but  scarce  a  word  of  child- 
hood is  found  in  them,  except  in  one,  the  "Babes 
in  the  Wood,"  which  Addison  describes  in  1711 
as  "one  of  the  darling  songs  of  the  common 
people."  Educational  books  were  written,  es- 
pecially rules  and  directions  as  to  deportment. 
Aylmer,  the  king  in  an  old  poem,  giving  direc- 
tions for  the  education  of  the  prince,  says : 

"  Teach  him  to  harp 

With  his  nayles  sharp, 
Before  me  to  carve, 
And  of  the  cup  serve." 

It  is  said  indeed,  that  English  children  were, 
in  the  civilization  of  their  manners,  a  hundred 
years  in  advance  of  the  children  on  the  con- 
tinent. It  may  be,  but  I  scarcely  think  it, 
from  the  rules  that  are  given  for  their  behavior. 
Erasmus  tells  "a  chylde  of  noble  bloude  and 
singular  hope  not  to  rough  his  hair  like  a 
wild  colt,  nor  lick  dishes,  for  that  is  the  prop- 
erty of  cats."  Other  books  have  much  more 
primitive  directions.  Children  were  things  to 
be  made  and  formed,  not  to  be  accepted  in  their 
native  state.  They  were  pinched  and  pulled, 

137 


THE  CHILD  IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

beaten  and  knocked  down;  their  very  heads 
were  broken.  Lady  Jane  Grey,  the  possible, 
even  probable,  heir  to  a  throne,  in  her  child- 
hood wrote,  "I  am  so  cruelly  treated,  I  am  so 
disordered,  that  sometimes  I  think  myself  in 
hell." 

The  severities,  showing  as  they  do,  a  strong 
belief  in  natural  depravity  and  in  the  power 
of  discipline,  could  hardly  help  detracting 
from  the  romance  of  childhood.  There  were 
other  influences  affecting  and  casting  a  restraint 
upon  literature  of  every  kind;  wars,  heresies, 
persecutions,  almost  a  disorganization  of  so- 
ciety; nowhere  the  peace  and  quiet  loved  by 
student  and  artist.  And  childhood  was  really 
an  undiscovered  region.  This,  in  itself,  is 
much ;  for  even  in  the  field  of  imagination  men 
are  like  sheep,  one  following  another.  The 
stuff  for  fancy's  play  could  but  remain  a  while 
longer  what  it  had  been — gallant  knights,  beau- 
tiful ladies,  lonely  hermits,  horrible  hobgoblins, 
terrible  dragons. 

At  last  a  man  came  who  had  kept  intact  his 
child  heart,  as  some  wonder  of  a  day  might 
keep  the  dewy  brightness  of  dawn  through  all 

138 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

the  changing  hours.  He  saw  the  innocence  and 
artlessness;  the  meekness  and  weakness  and 
strength  of  childhood;  its  roguishness,  its 
witchery,  its  preternatural  acuteness,  its  fond 
flatteries,  its  wanton  wiles,  its  ineffable  charm. 
It  is  impossible  that  Shakespeare  should  have 
had  other  than  a  most  affectionate  heart;  and 
in  the  nest  at  home,  which  he  took  pains  to 
make  soft  and  pleasant,  were  three  little  ones; 
and  one  was  like  her  father  in  wit.  The  only 
son  died  at  the  sweet,  bright  age  of  eleven. 
This  boy  must  have  been  often  in  the  father's 
mind,  as  his  magic  called  again  to  life  the  hap- 
less boys  of  history  or  put  into  form  the  crea- 
tions of  his  own  brain.  His  children,  not  so 
numerous,  are  still  as  various  as  his  men  and 
women.  He  knows  the  child  whose  whole  being 
seems  love.  Under  the  sunshine  of  kindness, 
such  a  one  blooms  and  flourishes,  an  embodied 
joy ;  in  the  shadow  of  unkindness  or  of  sorrow, 
his  life  withers  away. 

The  tender  child  may  have  a  hero's  courage. 
The  little  Macduff  teases  his  unhappy  mother, 
but,  when  the  assassin  appears,  with  his  dying 
breath  cries  to  her  to  run  away.  Shakespeare 

139 


THE  CHILD  IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

does  not  despise  the  natural  boy.  The  Roman 
Martins  who  races  after  a  butterfly  and  tears 
it  to  pieces,  would  rather  see  swords  and  hear 
drums  than  look  upon  a  school  master.  An- 
other little  Koman,  Lucius,  is  the  brave,  faith- 
ful, patient  attendant  of  the  sad  Brutus.  The 
capacity  a  child  has  for  suffering,  the  degree 
to  which  a  little  heart  may  be  wrung  with 
anguish,  appears  in  the  gentle  and  meek  Prince 
Arthur. 

"  I  would  that  I  were  low  laid  In  my  grave. 
I  am  not  worth  this  coll  that's  made  for  me. 
******* 

O,  this  will  make  my  mother  die  with  grief." 

The  bloody  and  thunderous  tragedy  of  Eich- 
ard  III.  is  softened  by  the  character  and  de- 
meanor of  the  two  little  princes,  Edward  and 
York.  "So  wise,  so  young,"  they  passed  on  to 
their  doom. 

Shakespeare  has  some  belief  in  inherited 
character.  The  two  stolen  sons  of  Cymbeline 
grew  up  in  the  savage  wilderness  yet  were  "as 
gentle  as  zephyrs  blowing  below  the  violet." 

So  Perdita,  brought  up  in  a  shepherd's  hut, 
shows  a  right  royal  spirit  when,  after  being  in- 

140 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

suited  and  threatened  by  the  mighty  King  of 
Bohemia,  she  exclaims : 

"  I  was  not  much  afeard." 

The  last  and  daintiest  touches  of  the  magi- 
cian's genius  were  given  to  Miranda.  Words- 
worth's poem 

"  Three  years  she  grew  In  sun  and  shower," 

seems    Shakepeare's    own    conception    of    this 
maiden  of  fifteen. 

"  She  shall  be  sportive  as  the  fawn 
That  wild  with  glee  across  the  lawn 

Or  up  the  mountain  springs; 
And  hers  shall  be  the  breathing  balm, 
And  hers  the  silence  and  the  calm 

Of  mute  insensate  things. 

The  floating  clouds  their  state  shall  lend 
To  her;  for  her  the  willow  bend; 

Nor  shall  she  fail  to  see 
Even  in  the  motions  of  the  storm 
Grace  that  shall  mold  the  maiden's  form 

By  silent  sympathy." 

We  may  almost  say  that  as  children  came 
into  English  literature  with  Shakespeare,  they 
went  out  of  it  with  Shakespeare.  His  mantle 
fell  upon  none.  Yet  Milton  wore  a  gracious 
singing  robe  of  his  own,  and  would  fain  have 
written  something  to  inspire  young  Englishmen 
to  nobler  living,  but  he  had  fallen  on  evil  times. 

141 


THE  CHILD  IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

The  mystical  genius  of  Henry  Vaughan,  the 
Welshman,  recognizes  the  mystical  nature  of 
childhood  in  more  than  one  poem,  and  clearly 
in  that  which  is  the  forerunner  of  Words- 
worth's greatest : 

"  Happy  those  early  days,  when  I 
Shined  in  my  angel  infancy! 

*  *    * 

"  When  on  some  gilded  cloud,  or  flower, 
My  gazing  soul  would  dwell  an  hour. 

*  *    * 

"  Oh,  how  I  long  to  travel  back, 

And  tread  again  that  ancient  track! 

That  I  might  once  more  reach  that  plain, 

Where  first  I  left  my  glorious  train. 

*  *    * 

"  Some  men  a  forward  motion  love, 

But  I  by  backward  steps  would  move; 
And  when  this  dust  falls  to  the  urn, 
In  that  state  I  came,  return." 

These  lovely  lines  fitly  wind  up  the  Eliza- 
bethan period;  indeed,  they  reach  out,  a  point 
of  light  into  the  darkness  that  had  now  set  in. 

Again,  nearly  two  hundred  years  went  by 
before  the  child  became  an  important  figure 
in  any  production.  Here  and  there,  on  historic 
pages,  gleams  for  a  moment  some  sweet  young 
face,  as  of  the  Princess  Elizabeth,  who  died 
broken-hearted  after  the  execution  of  her 
father;  or  the  poor  little,  abused  Duke  of 
Gloucester,  heir  to  the  English  throne,  beaten 

142 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

and  cuffed,  and  marched  about  and  tyrannized 
over,  until  his  little  life  faded  away;  or  the 
blind  daughter  of  the  imprisoned  and  perse- 
cuted Bunyan.  He  writes  of  her,  "Poor  child, 
what  sorrow  art  thou  like  to  have  for  thy  por- 
tion in  this  world — though  I  cannot  now  endure 
the  wind  should  blow  upon  thee." 

Everywhere  were  children,  on  village  greens, 
in  country  gardens,  at  the  poor  man's  board, 
at  the  rich  man's  fireside,  in  schools,  in  fields, 
at  work,  at  play,  busy  as  bees,  bright  as  butter- 
flies, frolicsome  as  lambs — everywhere  except  in 
literature,  always  the  mirror  of  the  thought  and 
feeling  of  its  time.  The  children,  too,  had  fallen 
on  evil  times — wild,  witty,  dazzling,  but  un- 
wholesome times.  Nature  as  a  study  was  un- 
known; humanity  as  humanity,  unrecognized. 
The  poets  who  figure  in  "Johnson's  Lives,"  did 
not  allow  little  feet  to  join  the  stately  march, 
or  the  riotous  dance  of  their  lords  and  ladies. 
The  corrupt  dramatists  had  no  entrance  to  the 
fairy  land  of  childhood.  Pope's  few  lines  about 
the  child  are  petty — 

"  Behold  the  child,  by  Nature's  kindly  law, 
Pleased  with  a  rattle,  tickled  with  a  straw; 

143 


THE  CHILD  IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Some  livelier  plaything  gives  his  youth  delight, 
A  little  louder,  but  as  empty  quite." 

The  kind  heart  of  Gray,  later  than  Pope,  is 
filled  with  pity  by  the  view  of  boys  at  their 
games : 

"Alas!  regardless  of  their  doom, 
The  little  victims  play." 

He  then  enumerates  the  future  passions,  and 
the  miseries  that  lie  in  wait  for  the  little  vic- 
tims. Compare  with  Pope  and  Gray,  Words- 
worth's tender  address  to  Hartley  Coleridge  in 
which  he,  too,  has  forebodings. 

"O  blessed  vision!    Happy  child! 
Thou  art  so  exquisitely  wild, 
I  think  of  thee  with  many  fears, 
For  what  may  be  thy  lot  in  future  years." 

Swift,  the  just,  forceful  writer  of  English 
prose,  in  ghastly  irony  commends  to  the  starv- 
ing Irish,  as  the  most  delicate  and  satisfying 
of  roast  meats,  an  infant  of  one  or  two  years. 
Steele  and  Sterne  each  has  a  single  sentence  re- 
lating to  child  life  that  does  honor  to  his  heart. 
Addison  and  Locke  write  on  education,  but  few 
others  seem  to  think  of  children.  Even  books 
of  deportment,  so  common  in  the  period  be- 
tween Chaucer  and  Shakespeare,  are  rare. 

144 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

Things  that  have  been  come  again;  light  be- 
gan to  dawn,  and  life  to  stir  before  the  dawn. 
On  the  one-cent  counter  of  a  bookshop  may  now 
sometimes  be  found  a  little  story  in  simple, 
beautiful  English,  with  gaudy  illustrations, 
from  Newbury's  publishing  house.  The  tale 
is  probably  from  Goldsmith's  pen.  It  is  a  pity 
that  one  of  the  first  stories  of  childhood  should 
be  so  little  known.  One  of  the  sweetest  and 
most  loving  poems  is  Cowper's  "0  that  those 
lips  had  language."  The  poet  lives  over  the 
first  day  of  his  childish  sorrow,  a  sorrow  that 
had  never  left  him  during  the  fifty  years  that 
had  since  passed.  In  his  "Tirocinium"  he  gives 
a  powerful  contrasting  picture  of  his  bitter  ex- 
perience at  school. 

Cowper  had  yet  many  years  to  live  when, 
"Piping  down  the  valleys  wild,  piping  songs 
of  pleasant  glee,"  came  the  poet,  William  Blake. 

"  On  a  cloud  I  saw  a  child, 

And  he,  laughing,  said  to  me:— 
'Pipe  a  song  about  a  lamb/  " 

And  so  the  poet  piped  of  lambs  and  fairies  and 
flowers,  and  of  the  various  things  that  make  up 
the  "Songs  of  Innocence." 

145 


THE  CHILD  IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

Maria  Edge  worth  is  no  mean  writer;  nor  is 
Thomas  Day,  though  his  "Sanford  and  Merton" 
lives  more  as  a  type  of  the  practical  in  educa- 
tion, than  for  its  literary  merit.  I  should  be 
lacking  in  gratitude  did  I  not  name  Joanna 
Baillie,  one  of  the  delights  of  my  childhood; 
and  there  are  others  who  deserve  mention. 

The  sun  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  set  in 
glory.  How  fair  a  day  the  red  sky  promised, 
not  the  most  sanguine  could  foresee.  Foremost 
in  the  radiant  group  that  looked  with  the  poet's 
eye  of  boundless  love  on  that  glowing  eve,  and 
on  the  rosy  dawn  of  the  new  day,  were  the  high- 
spirited  Scott,  and  the  high-thinking  Words- 
worth. Scott's  love  of  children  is  shown  in 
some  of  his  poems,  and  in  some  of  his  novels, 
but  nothing  that  he  writes  is  so  tender  as  his 
friendship  with  Marjorie  Fleming.  He  wrapped 
her  in  his  plaid  as  a  shepherd  his  lamb,  and 
gave  himself  up  to  her  wiles  and  witcheries. 

She  was  a  strong-hearted  creature,  looking 
into  life  and  duty  with  an  earnestness  becoming 
the  country-woman  of  Knox ;  giving  herself  to 
fun,  frolic,  and  mischief  with  an  abandon  natu- 
ral to  the  country-woman  of  Burns.  Her  little 

146 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

life  (she  died  before  she  was  nine)  had  its  own 
troubles,  but  her  greatest  plague,  she  writes 
when  she  is  about  six,  is  her  multiplication; 
and  the  "most  devilish  thing  is  eight-times- 
eight,  and  seven-times-seven ;  it  is  what  nature 
itself  cannot  endure."  They  used  strong  lan- 
guage in  those  days.  Dr.  John  Brown  describes 
her  as  she  appeared  at  a  Twelfth  Night  supper 
at  Scott's.  She  came  in  a  sedan  chair.  When 
the  top  was  raised,  there  sat  Marjorie  in  white, 
her  eyes  gleaming.  Scott,  bending  over  her  in 
ecstacy,  said,  "Sit  ye  there,  my  dautie,  till  they 
all  see  you."  When  his  company  had  looked,  he 
lifted  her  up  and  marched,  to  his  seat  with  her 
on  his  stout  shoulder.  That  night  was  never 
equalled,  said  they  who  knew  Scott.  Marjorie 
and  he  were  the  stars;  Scott  showing  her  off, 
and  being  often  rebuked  by  her  for  his  inten- 
tional blunders. 

Wordsworth  sought  out  "fresh  woods  and  pas- 
tures new."  He  devoted  and  dedicated  himself 
to  nature,  humanity,  man  as  man,  of  every 
degree,  of  every  age  and  condition.  As  for 
children,  he  took  up  the  story  where  Shakes- 
peare had  dropped  it,  and  studied  them  as  per- 

147 


THE  CHILD  IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

haps  even  Shakespeare  had  not.  People 
laughed  at  the  idiot  boy  and  Alice  Fell.  Let 
them  laugh.  Once  they  laughed  at  everything 
that  came  from  Wordsworth's  pen.  Most  human 
beings  are  half  asleep  when  they  travel  the  first 
stage  of  their  journey,  or  they  fall  asleep  soon, 
and  forget  their  impressions;  though  now  and 
then  for  a  moment  a  wandering  remembrance 
"from  the  dark  and  backward  abysm  of  time" 
strikes  a  sudden  new  life  into  the  soul.  Words- 
worth not  only  remembered  his  childhood;  he 
kept  his  early  self  in  his  heart,  a  living  and 
sacred  thing.  Of  set  purpose,  he  studied  the 
processes  and  experiences  of  growth  and  devel- 
opment in  himself  and  in  his  boyish  companions, 
in  his  children  and  in  the  children  of  the  cot- 
tagers about  them.  Ascribing  to  natural  objects 
a  high,  if  not  supreme  influence,  he  says : 

"  The  fairest  of  all  rivers  loved 
To  blend  his  murmurs  with  my  nurse's  song, 
And,  from  his  alder  shades  and  rocky  falls, 

And  from  his  fords  and  shallows,  sent  a  voice 
That  flowed  along  my  dreams.    *    *    * 

******* 
Made  ceaseless  music  that  composed  my  thoughts 
To  more  than  infant  softness." 

Of  his  mates,  he  says  they  were: 
148 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

"A  race  of  real  children;  not  too  wise, 

Too  learned,  too  good,  but  wanton,  fresh, 

And  bandied  up  and  down  by  love  and  hate; 

******* 

Yet  yielding  not 
In  happiness  to  the  happiest  on  earth." 

In  a  little  poem  which  represents  nature  as 
adopting  a  child,  he  shows  how  beauty,  grace 
and  stateliness  are  given  by  breeze  and  tree  and 
faun  and  brook  and  murmuring  sound.  The 
mystic  union  of  living  things  we  find  in  the 
"Kitten  and  Falling  Leaves."  He  studies  the 
characteristics  of  his  daughter,  three  years  old. 
This  happy  creature,  the  little  Catharine,  that 
filled  "the  air  with  gladness  and  involuntary 
songs,"  died  when  she  was  four,  and  left  in  the 
house  such  a  blank  and  stillness  that  even  De 
Quincey  could  not  bear  it.  The  first  night  of 
his  visit  to  Wordsworth,  after  her  death,  he 
spent  in  the  churchyard  lying  beside  her  grave. 

As  if  she  had  been  a  princess  or  a  famous 
beauty,  Wordsworth  says  of  the  little  daughter 
of  a  basket  maker: 


"  Oft  I  had  heard  of  Lucy  Gray; 
And  when  I  cross'd  the  wild, 
I  chanced  to  see  at  break  of  day 
The   solitary   child. 

149 


THE  CHILD  IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

"  No  mate,  no  comrade  Lucy  knew; 

She  dwelt  on  a  wide  moor, — 
The  sweetest  thing  that  ever  grew 
Beside  a  human  door!" 

He  goes  on  in  simplest,  tenderest  way  to  tell 
her  fate — lost  on  the  moor.  He  lingers  in  talk 
with  the  little  cottage  girl  on  the  river  Wye. 

"  Her  eyes  were  fair,  and  very  fair; 
Her  beauty  made  me  glad." 

How  perfect  the  lines  that  everybody  knows : 

"  My  heart  leaps  up  when  I  behold 

A  rainbow  in  the  sky: 
So  was  it  when  my  life  began; 

So  is  it  now  I  am  a  man; 
So  be  it  when  I  shall  grow  old, 

Or  let  me  die! 

"  The  child  is  father  of  the  man; 
And  I  could  wish  my  days  to  be 
Bound  each  to  each  by  natural  piety." 

The  poem  that  crowns  Wordsworth  with 
glory,  the  poem  that  crowns  the  Nineteenth 
Century — "Intimations  of  Immortality" — is 
most  fitly  a  poem  of  childhood. 

"  The  rainbow  comes  and  goes 

And  lovely  is  the  rose: 
The  moon  doth  with  delight 
Look  round  her  when  the  heavens  are  bare; 
Waters  on  a  starry  night 
Are  beautiful  and  fair; 
The  sunshine  is  a  glorious  birth; 
But  yet  I  know,  where'er  I  go. 
That  there  hath  passed  away  a  glory  from  the  earth." 

150 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

"  Shades  of  the  prison  house  begin  to  close 
Upon  the  growing  boy;" 

Gratitude  and  joy  for  obstinate  questions,  for 
high  instincts  and  for  the  sympathy  the  human 
heart  has  with  nature : 

"  O  joy  that  in  our  embers 

Is  something  that  doth  live. 
That  nature  yet  remembers 
What  was  so  fugitive!" 

These,  regret,  inquiry,  gratitude  and  joy, 
form  the  thread  of  which  the  golden  web  of  this 
poem  is  woven.  All  of  Wordsworth's  great 
powers  meet  here, — felicity  of  phrase,  the 
artist's  creative  ability,  the  rapture  of  mysti- 
cism, the  ecstasy  of  adoration.  He  soared  so 
high  that  his  eagle  eye  cowered,  and  in  mid 
flight  he  sank  to  earth.  It  was  only  after  two 
years  that  he  rose  again,  into  that  rarer  air 
striking  the  former  note  with, 

"  Our  birth  is  but  a  sleep  and  a  forgetting: 

The  soul  that  rises  with  us,  our  life's  star, 
Hath  had  elsewhere  its  setting, 

And  cometh  from  afar; 
Not  in  entire  forgetfulness, 

And  not  in  utter  nakedness. 
But  trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  come 

From  God,  who  is  our  home: 
Heaven  lies  about  us  in  our  infancy!" 

If  there  is  anything  in  prose  nearer  perfection 
151 


THE  CHILD  IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

than  are  parts  of  De  Quincey's  Autobiography, 
I  do  not  know  it.  I  give  two  or  three  sentences 
from  his  "Affliction  of  Childhood."  He  was  six 
years  old,  and  was  alone  in  the  room  with  his 
dead  sister. 

"One  large  window  was  wide  open  through 
which  the  sun  of  midsummer  at  mid-day  was 
showering  down  torrents  of  splendor.  The  sky 
was  cloudless,  the  blue  depths  seemed  the  ex- 
press types  of  infinity;  and  it  was  not  possible 
for  eye  to  behold  or  for  heart  to  conceive  any 
symbols  more  pathetic  of  life  and  the  glory  of 
life. 

"Whilst  I  stood  a  solemn  wind  began  to  blow 
— the  saddest  that  ever  ear  heard.  It  was  a 
wind  that  might  have  swept  the  fields  of  mortal- 
ity for  a  thousand  centuries.  Many  times  since, 
upon  summer  days,  when  the  sun  is  about  the 
hottest,  I  have  remarked  the  same  wind  arising 
and  uttering  the  same  hollow  solemn  memo- 
riam." 

Coleridge  knows  and  expresses  the  charm  of 
helpless  infancy.  Southey  recognizes  it.  Chris- 
topher North,  in  his  stories,  depicts  with  much 
sentiment  children  of  Scottish  martyrs. 

152 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

Charles  Lamb  in  his  gentle,  pathetic,  humor- 
ous, fantastic  sentences,  as  different  as  possible 
from  the  gorgeous  style  of  De  Quincey,  pays 
loving  tribute  to  children.  "The  Prince  of 
Chimney  Sweepers" !  How  merry,  how  rollick- 
ing, how  pathetic  and  tender  it  is!  "I  have  a 
kindly  yearning  towards  these  dim  specks — 
poor  blots — innocent  blacknesses." 

The  best  part  of  the  essay  is  the  story  of  the 
little  creature  who,  tired  with  his  tedious  ex- 
plorations, and  lost  among  the  intricacies  of  the 
lordly  chambers  of  Arundel  Castle,  crept  be- 
tween the  sheets  of  the  Duke's  bed,  laid  his  black 
head  upon  the  pillow  "and  slept  like  a  young 
Howard."  Lamb  moralizes  from  Cymbeline : 


"  Golden  lads  and  girls  all  must, 
As  chimney  sweepers  come  to  dust." 


It  is  a  curious  thing  that  the  Poetry  for  Chil- 
dren, by  Charles  and  Mary  Lamb,  published  in 
1809,  went  soon  out  of  print,  and  was  almost 
forgotten.  Fifty  years  later  not  a  copy  could 
be  found  in  England.  In  1877  a  copy  dis- 
covered in  Australia  was  sent  over  the  seas  and 
republished.  At  the  same  time  two  copies  that 

153 


THE  CHILD  IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

had  been  reprinted  in  1821,  in  Boston,  were 
found.  The  most  of  these  little  poems  are 
simply  rhymed  lessons,  yet  many  of  them  are 
real  poetry. 

Byron  and  Shelley  had  no  open  sesame  into 
the  innocence  and  seclusion  of  childhood. 
Neither  had  Keats,  but  he  was  scarcely  out  of 
boyhood  himself.  Leigh  Hunt  and  Hood  have 
the  password.  Indeed,  nearly  every  writer  who 
has  reached  any  degree  of  eminence,  since  the 
great  men  of  the  lake  region  and  their  circle  of 
friends,  with  thousands  who  dwell  in  the  low 
places  of  literature,  serving  their  day  and  pass- 
ing out  with  their  day,  have  skirted  about  or 
explored  within  the  fair  gardens  and  the  mis- 
leading labyrinths  of  childhood. 

Thackeray,  Dickens,  George  Eliot,  have  made 
children  an  important  and  excellent  part  of 
their  work,  Thackeray  bearing  the  palm.  His 
Ethel  and  Olive,  his  little  Henry  Esmond  and 
Beatrix,  his  Dennis  Duval,  his  Georgie  Osborn 
and  Eawdon  minor,  are  creatures  equal  to 
Shakespeare's  children ;  and  different  from  and 
more  complete  than  the  similar  attempts  of  any 
other  novelist.  He  loved  all  children.  The 

154 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

closing  verse  of  "The  White  Squall"  speaks  a 
tender  remembrance  of  his  own : 

"  I  thought  as  day  was  breaking 

My  little  girls  were  waking, 
And  smiling  and  making 
A  prayer  at  home  for  me." 

Longfellow,  Whittier,  Hawthorne,  Lowell, 
Tennyson,  Barry  Cornwall,  Robert  and  Eliza- 
beth Browning,  Stevenson,  Whitcomb  Riley, 
have  "airy  tongues  that  syllable  the  names"  of 
dainty  and  sweet  childhood.  Barry  Cornwall 
and  Mrs.  Browning  moved  the  forces  of  govern- 
ment in  behalf  of  childhood,  and  the  beautiful 
words  of  all  are  cherished  in  grateful  hearts. 

There  is  no  more  pathos,  no  more  tenderness, 
no  more  sweetness,  in  Browning,  than  in  some 
others;  not  so  much  humor,  but  there  is  a  sort 
of  solemnity  of  sentiment  that  distinguishes 
him.  That  God  does  not  judge  of  character  or 
service  as  man  judges,  is  with  him  a  frequently 
recurring  thought,  even  in  the  poems  about 
children : 

"  Morning,  evening,  noon  and  night, 
'Praise  God!'  sang  Theocrite. 
Then  to  his  poor  trade  he  turned, 
Whereby  the  daily  meal  was  earned." 

He  was  happy,  yet  he  wanted  to  praise  God  in 
155 


THE  CHILD  IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

a  greater  way  as  "the  Pope  at  Rome  praises 
God  from  Peter's  dome."  So  the  angel  Gabriel 
took  his  place  on  his  working  bench,  and  Theo- 
crite,  first  preparing  himself  by  study  and 
prayer,  became  the  most  devout  of  Popes,  but 
God  said: 

"  I  miss  my  little  human  praise." 

So  he  went  back  to  his  trade  and  his  simple  song 
of  praise. 

One  day,  walking  alone  in  a  wood,  Browning 
thought  what  might  be  the  influence  of  one  who 
walked  thus  alone  through  life ;  and  so  formed 
in  his  brain  the  story  of  Pippa,  the  little  silk- 
winder;  not  the  story  of  her  life,  but  of  her 
one  holiday.  Before  she  goes  out  to  enjoy  her 
day,  she  repeats  the  New  Year's  hymn  begin- 
ning, "All  service  ranks  the  same  with  God"; 
and  after  she  comes  back  from  her  wanderings 
in  the  evening,  having  all  unawares  saved  more 
than  one  soul,  too  tired  to  utter  any  prayer  but 
"God  bless  me,"  she  sinks  upon  her  bed  and 
falls  asleep,  murmuring  the  first  lines  of  the 
morning  hymn: 

"  All  service  ranks  the  same  with  God, 
With  God,  whose  puppets,  best  and  worst, 
Are  we:    There  is  no  last  nor  first." 

156 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

It  is  right  and  fair  to  represent  the  child  as 
grappling  with,  and  grasping  great  truths. 
With  lifted  brows,  with  wondering  eager  eyes, 
the  new  comer  looks  out  upon  the  world,  and  up 
to  the  sky.  It  is  all  strange,  miraculous,  in- 
explicable; but  it  is  home;  it  is  his  Father's 
house,  and  he  is  not  afraid. 


157 


THE  GENERAL:  A   CHARACTER   SKETCH 

About  fifteen  years  ago,  there  appeared  in 
one  of  the  upland  valleys  of  California  a 
shaggy,  yellow-haired,  long-bearded,  tall,  spare 
personage  from  Tennessee,  bearing  the  orna- 
mental title  of  general.  He  came  not  so  much 
for  health  as  for  the  repose  of  a  soul  at  odds 
with  the  world.  On  a  steep  declivity  of  the  out- 
lying mountain  which  forms  the  northern  wall 
of  the  valley,  he  built  two  cabins,  some  little 
distance  apart,  one  for  his  wife,  who  seldom 
honored  the  place  with  her  presence,  the  other 
for  himself.  The  loft  of  his  cabin  was  his  sleep- 
ing apartment ;  his  bed,  protruding  through  the 
wall  in  order  that,  while  his  body  was  safely 
under  cover,  the  nobler  part  of  him  might  be 
visited  by  the  stars  and  fanned  by  the  moun- 
tain breeze.  In  his  downstairs  room  and  around 
his  always  open  door  his  comprehensive  hos- 
pitality welcomed  not  only  man  but  birds,  squir- 
rels, rabbits,  weasels,  mountain-rats,  kangaroo- 
rats,  coyotes,  gophers,  even  skunks. 

158 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

Against  the  outer  wall  of  the  now  deserted 
and  ruinous  cabin  stands  to  this  day  a  moun- 
tain-rat's high,  dome-like  citadel — also  deserted, 
a  sort  of  memorial  of  the  little  time  when 
nature's  social  union  was  restored. 

The  General,  however,  had  no  respect  for  the 
feelings  of  the  young  apple  orchard  in  the  midst 
of  which  he  had  fixed  his  dwelling.  He  tried 
to  make  the  trees  bloom  and  bear  at  the  same 
time  like  oranges.  He  trained  their  branches 
down  in  order  to  root  them  like  banyans.  The 
sturdy  apple  trees  suffered  somewhat  from  the 
torture  to  which  they  were  subjected,  but  they 
persisted  in  growing  according  to  their  own 
sweet  nature. 

The  General  was  courteous  and  ceremonious 
to  an  extreme  verging  on  the  pompous.  On  his 
lips  the  English  language  grew  statelier  than 
itself.  He  gave  to  things  their  most  high- 
sounding  names.  The  ramshackle  buggy  of  the 
kind  Doctor,  who  had  no  practice  because  no- 
body was  ever  ill,  the  General  always  spoke  of 
as  the  Doctor's  chariot. 

He  was  much  given  to  oratory  and  was  fond 
of  theatrical  displays. 

159 


THE  GENERAL :  A  CHARACTER  SKETCH 

When  the  famous  singer,  Miss  Yaw,  was  in 
Los  Angeles  he  invited  her  to  his  place  and 
hoisted  her  to  a  lofty  ledge,  where  she  good- 
naturedly  sang  her  sweetest  to  an  admiring  and 
grateful  group  from  the  valley. 

With  labor  heyond  belief  he  set  up  a  liberty- 
pole  one  Fourth  of  July  on  an  almost  inac- 
cessible height,  where  it  could  not  possibly 
stand.  He  planted  trees  on  this  same  height 
where  they  could  not  possibly  live. 

But  good  and  kindly  deeds  as  well  as  brave 
words  and  eccentric  acts  are  cherished  in  the 
hearts  of  the  neighbors  who  lived  hundreds  of 
feet  below  his  lonely  cabin.  With  incredible 
toil  he  once  dragged  trees  up  from  the  ravine 
behind  the  first  mountain  ridge  and  down  to 
the  lowest  part  of  the  valley  two  miles  away, 
and  planted  them  to  serve  for  temporary  shade 
before  a  cabin  in  which  there  was  to  be  a  wed- 
ding. Besides  putting  up  an  outside  adornment 
of  wreaths  and  arches,  he  covered  the  floor, 
ceiling  and  wall  with  roses.  The  lovely  bride 
on  whom  the  celestial  rosy  red  was  radiated 
"looked  like  an  angel,"  wrote  an  English  woman 
who  was  present.  Perhaps  nobody  felt  more 

160 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

pleasure  in  the  scene  he  had  done  so  much  to 
beautify  than  the  kindly  General. 

For  several  nights  at  one  time  he  lay  on  the 
ground  before  a  house  in  which  two  young  girls 
were  sleeping  alone,  their  parents  having  been 
unexpectedly  called  away.  He  had  come  two 
long,  steep,  stony  miles  each  evening  to  keep 
an  unrecognized  watch  over  beings  too  innocent 
even  to  feel  fear. 

The  General  belongs  to  the  past  of  the  Cali- 
fornia valley.  The  wild  creatures  of  the  moun- 
tain have  forgotten  him.  Only  a  fading  mem- 
ory lingers  in  the  kindly  homes  of  the  valley. 
His  mountain  cabin  is  deserted.  He  is  gone 
from  there,  no  one  knows  whither.  No  message 
has  come  from  him;  no  word  of  his  welfare. 
Where  his  restless  feet  are  wandering  none 
know.  But  wherever  he  may  be — in  Honduras 
or  Nicaragua,  in  Greece  or  Afghanistan — he 
must  remain  the  same  generous,  chivalrous, 
pompous,  unreasonable,  ridiculous  gentleman, 
whom  the  valley  knew,  and  laughed  at,  and 
loved. 


MARTYRS  TO   FAITH 

One  of  the  most  self-indulgent,  and,  in  consequence, 
one  of  the  most  hard  and  cruel  of  the  English  kings, 
suddenly  finding  himself  at  the  door  of  death,  felt  the 
mists  clear  away  from  his  vision  and  the  scales  drop, 
from  his  eyes.  Looking  back  on  his  own  path,  he  saw 
that  unworthy  thoughts  and  frivolous  talk— the  "evil 
communications"  that  corrupt  good  manners— had 
taken  the  pith  out  of  him,  had  unmanned  him  and 
made  him  what  he  was. 

Looking  forward  on  what  he  supposed  would  be  the 
path  of  his  little  son,  he  advised  that  none  but  good 
and  wise  men  should  sit  at  meals  with  the  young 
prince;  that  the  entertainment  should  be  the  reading 
aloud  of  noble  stories;  and  that  communication  at  all 
times  in  the  youth's  presence  should  be  of  virtue, 
honor,  knowledge,  wisdom,  deeds  of  worship  and  re- 
nown. On  this  principle  was  begun  the  training  of 
that  remarkable  boy,  who  was  smothered  in  London 
Tower  by  his  treacherous  uncle,  Richard  Third. 

It  is  a  good  principle,  and  not  only  for  the  training 
of  children.  It  is  well  for  men  and  women  to  read 
noble  stories  and  to  talk  of  deeds  of  worship  and 
renown. 

Precept  is  good,  but  the  living  example  is  better. 
Industry  and  intelligence  are  admirable.  Courage  Is 
noble.  Patience  is  saintlike.  Steadfastness,  fortitude, 
faith,  are  sublime.  We  may  acknowledge  all  this,  yet 
go  into  the  world  and  fail  in  courage,  patience,  forti- 
tude, faith,— every  virtue.  But  it  is  scarcely  possible 
that  an  acquaintance  with  the  greatly  good,  an  inti- 
mate knowledge  of  their  unpretending  heroism,  a  sym- 
pathy with  their  unselfish  sorrows  and  their  lofty  joys, 
will  not  refine  and  elevate  our  lives. 


Far  away  from  us, — remote  in  space,  remote 
162 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

in  time,  widely  separated,  too,  from  each  other 
in  habits,  customs  and  language,  were  the  three 
peoples  whose  melancholy  but  inspiring  story  I 
shall  try  to  tell. 

It  was  midwinter  in  the  Christian  world  in 
the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century.  The 
time  was  disorganized,  confused,  distressed,  im- 
poverished. The  Crusades  had  done  much  evil, 
and  apparently  no  good.  The  mighty  Catholic 
church,  already  venerable,  seemingly  eternal, 
for  it  stood  and  grew  and  strengthened  while 
kingdoms  rose,  lived  their  little  term  and  fell, — 
the  mighty  Catholic  church,  as  yet  undivided 
(the  seamless  garment  of  Christ  it  called  itself), 
was  at  the  summit  of  its  power.  It  was  a  well 
constructed  government,  an  organized,  orderly 
state,  with  vast  wealth  at  its  command,  with 
every  means  to  enforce  its  power,  claiming  to  be 
infallible  in  doctrine,  immaculate  in  purity, 
divine  in  wisdom. 

In  the  papal  chair  sat  the  greatest  of  the 
popes,  a  young  man  not  yet  forty;  a  sincere, 
severe,  lofty-souled  man,  named  Innocent  by 
the  cardinals  who  elected  him  because  of  his 
blameless  life.  With  the  cold  clear  eye  and 

163 


MARTYRS  TO  FAITH 

steady  hand  of  one  who  knows  no  personal  bias, 
as  far  from  human  sympathy  as  only  a  priest  or 
an  angel  may  be,  Innocent  III.  defended  the 
weak,  punished  the  wicked,  excommunicated 
kings,  laid  kingdoms  under  interdict;  and, 
above  all,  suppressed  free  thought.  Like  a 
blighting  frost  his  breath  fell  on  the  tender 
leaves  of  a  too  early  spring.  It  was  as  if  they 
had  never  been. 

This  greatest,  wisest,  purest  of  popes,  this 
Innocent  in  name  and  life,  instituted  the  first 
and  worst  persecution  in  the  history  of  the 
Christian  church.  So  unfit  is  the  best  of  men 
for  divine  power.  The  latest,  hardest  lesson 
the  world  has  learned  is  tolerance  of  opinion. 
Men  read  the  Bible,  such  men  as  could  read, 
hundreds  of  years,  without  seeing  that  if  the 
Holy  Book  teaches  anything,  it  teaches  charity. 
In  general,  toleration  was,  and  so  remained  un- 
til the  seventeenth  century,  as  much  an  undis- 
covered thing  as  America  before  Columbus 
sailed  westward. 

Innocent  proudly  felt  himself  the  vicegerent 
of  God;  and  proudly  asserted  that  the  seam- 
less garment  should  not  be  rent  while  his  hands 

164 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

held  it.  It  was  not.  He  lacerated  and  muti- 
lated the  body,  but  he  kept  the  garment  whole. 

Auricular  confession  had  before  this  time 
been  voluntary.  Innocent's  long  head  saw  in  it 
a  means  for  strengthening  and  tightening  eccle- 
siastical power.  He  therefore  made  it  an  obli- 
gation, thus  binding,  by  finest  and  strongest 
threads,  not  states,  nor  dioceses,  nor  parishes, 
but  every  individual  soul  throughout  Christen- 
dom, to  the  church.  From  that  day  to  this  the 
Confessional  has  been,  while  the  most  silent, 
the  most  secret,  at  the  same  time  the  strongest 
of  churchly  ties;  invisible,  impalpable  but  om- 
nipotent. 

A  spirit  of  inquiry,  however,  was  astir.  Not 
even  the  Confessional  could  suppress  it.  Too 
often  the  lives  of  priests  were  in  flagrant  viola- 
tion of  the  principles  they  preached.  Every- 
where the  wealth  of  the  church,  its  pomp  and 
pride,  were  in  striking  contrast  with  the  poverty 
and  humility  of  the  first  apostles. 

The  new  thought  and  life  found  first  and 
fullest  expression  in  the  lovely  lands  which  lie 
on  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  between  the 
Pyrenees  and  the  Rhone ;  where  the  old  Roman 

165 


MARTYRS  TO  FAITH 

civilization,  with  its  bridges  and  its  roads,  its 
laws  and  its  order,  lingered  longest;  where  the 
elements  of  feudalism  were  most  mild  and 
bright;  where  the  commercial  and  intellectual 
power  of  the  Jew,  the  elegant  and  artistic  re- 
finement of  the  Moor,  were  acknowledged  and 
honored. 

To  the  harmonious  blending  of  these  various 
influences  was  due  a  spirit  of  enterprise  that 
developed  commerce  and  manufactures,  an  in- 
dustry that  made  the  most  of  fertile  plain  and 
hill;  a  chivalry  less  harsh,  perhaps  less  noble, 
than  the  chivalry  of  the  North;  a  liberty  that 
went  hand  in  hand  with  loyalty,  a  tolerance  that 
allowed  every  shade  of  belief  and  almost  every 
degree  of  disbelief.  Men  of  learning  translated 
the  Holy  Scriptures  into  the  vernacular,  and 
scattered  them  abroad.  The  people,  the  most 
intelligent  in  the  Christian  world,  read  the 
translation  and,  in  consequence,  denied  the  su- 
premacy of  the  pope,  and  the  right  of  priests 
to  intrude  between  the  soul  and  its  God. 

In  denial,  in  protesting  against  the  Church 
of  Eome,  the  people  were  one;  but  in  the  doc- 
trines they  accepted  there  was  almost  every 

166 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

variety,  and  in  mode  of  life  everything  from 
asceticism  to  sensuality.  They  were  a  lively 
people,  a  people  of  poets  and  musicians — the 
first  poets  of  modern  times.  They  danced  and 
sang  and  laughed.  Their  cities  were  alive  with 
business;  their  valleys  and  slopes  were  green 
with  olives  and  vines.  A  fertile  soil  and  a 
balmy  air  encouraged  and  rewarded  labor.  And 
labor  itself  was  enlivened  by  mirth  and  song. 
Lords  and  princes,  like  peasants  and  citizens, 
were  merry  and  musical  and  independent. 
Youth  feels  itself  immortal.  Languedoc  was 
young.  It  felt  its  life  in  every  limb.  It  laughed 
audaciously  in  the  face  of  the  surly  preacher. 
In  vain,  priests,  at  least  such  as  did  not  dance 
and  sing  with  the  multitude,  exhorted  and  wept, 
entreated  and  threatened  and  cursed.  They 
were  only  laughed  at  for  their  pains. 

Suddenly,  the  gay,  bright,  musical  world 
grew  dark  and  still.  Men  and  women  disap- 
peared and  were  seen  no  more.  Whispers  of 
imprisonment  and  of  torture  fired  the  blood  of 
the  high-spirited  Gothic  Romans,  for  such,  in 
origin,  were  these  inhabitants  of  southern 
France — not  Frenchmen  in  language  or  cus- 

167 


MARTYRS  TO  FAITH 

toms.  They  took  up  arms  against  the  See  of 
Rome. 

The  Pope  proclaimed  a  new  Crusade,  declar- 
ing that  he  who  died  in  France  at  war  with  the 
heretic  would  as  certainly  secure  a  place  in 
Paradise  as  he  who  died  in  Palestine  at  war 
with  the  infidel.  It  is  a  mystery  that  wicked 
men  should  want  to  go  to  Heaven,  in  whose  pure 
atmosphere  they  could  not  feel  at  home.  But 
the  wicked  men  of  that  day  were  fully  con- 
vinced that  there  was  a  bad  place  yawning  to 
receive  them;  that  there  they  would  burn  for- 
ever and  forever  unless  some  great  good  deed 
of  their  own,  or  of  another  bought  by  them- 
selves, would  open  to  them  the  gates  guarded  by 
Saint  Peter.  Moreover,  the  Pope  promised  to 
the  Crusaders  the  lands  and  castles  and  goods 
and  moneys  of  the  heretics. 

Add  to  these  inducements  the  fact  that  hu- 
man nature  is  narrow,  that  it  loves  to  persecute, 
and  we  have  a  strong  union  of  motive  in  the 
new  Crusade;  hate  of  an  opponent,  love  of 
wealth,  fear  of  hell,  the  promise  of  Heaven,  a 
promise  that  did  not  require  weary  journeys 
over  seas  and  deserts.  Southern  France  lay  at 

168 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

their  very  doors.  From  every  quarter  of  Chris- 
tendom men  thronged  to  the  banners  of  the 
church.  A  hundred  thousand  and  more  ruffians 
prepared  to  carry  out  the  papal  decree. 

The  Albigenses,  called  from  Albi,  the  city  in 
which  they,  as  heretics,  first  or  most  numerously 
appeared,  manfully  stood  their  ground  and 
their  princes  stood  by  them.  Jane  Plantagenet, 
the  wife  of  Count  Raymond  of  Toulouse,  a 
woman  who  possessed  the  best  qualities  of  the 
great  Plantagenet  family,  hastened  to  Nor- 
mandy to  beg  aid  of  her  brother  Eichard.  The 
lion-hearted  was  just  dead.  No  help  nor  hope 
was  to  be  had  in  Normandy.  Weary  and  heart- 
sick, the  Lady  Jane  lay  down  and  died.  She 
was  buried  beside  her  brother. 

This  was  the  beginning  of  woes  to  Count 
Eaymond.  He  who  fought  against  Rome  beat 
his  head  against  a  wall.  Impoverished,  humili- 
ated and  discouraged,  Raymond  lived  to  see  fair 
daylight  go  out  from  the  sunny  valleys  of  the 
South. 

The  Albigensian  war  was  the  first  great  re- 
ligious war  between  Christians  who  equally  pro- 
fessed to  accept  Christ  as  the  Son  of  God  and 

169 


MARTYRS  TO  FAITH 

the  Saviour  of  the  world.  And  it  was  the  most 
atrocious.  Fire  and  water  were  called  to  the 
aid  of  the  sword,  and  the  sword  was  a  butch- 
er's axe.  The  persecutors  were  intensely  reli- 
gious. More  than  once  bishops  and  legates 
stood  chanting,  "Come,  Holy  Spirit,"  while  a 
tumultuous  massacre  proceeded,  offering  to  the 
God  whose  name  is  love,  bloodier  sacrifices  than 
had  ever  been  laid  on  heathen  altars. 

During  the  progress  of  the  war,  the  Catho- 
lics of  the  country  had  united  with  the  Albi- 
gensians  to  save  the  land  from  devastation,  so 
that  for  awhile  it  was  as  much  a  patriotic  as  a 
religious  war.  After  the  successful  storming  of 
the  city  of  Beziers,  the  Catholic  commander 
said  to  the  Abbot  Arnold:  "We  are  ready  for 
the  massacre,  but  how  shall  we  know  Christian 
and  heretic  apart?"  The  question  perplexed 
the  Abbot.  There  was  no  time  for  the  sum- 
moning of  witnesses,  no  time  for  trial;  the 
soldiers  of  the  church  were  straining  like  blood- 
hounds in  the  leash.  He  cut  the  knot.  "Slay 
them  all,"  he  said ;  "God  will  know  His  own !" 
So  all  were  slain,  twenty  thousand  soldiers  and 
citizens,  Catholics  and  heretics. 

170 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

The  Lady  Geralda,  whose  virtues  troubadours 
sang,  long  and  stoutly  maintained  the  defence 
of  the  town  of  Lavaur.  At  last  she  surren- 
dered. Kefusing  to  be  converted  on  the  spot, 
she  was  thrown  into  a  well.  The  whole  gar- 
rison of  Mountlaur  was  hanged.  But  one  eye 
was  left  in  a  company  of  a  hundred  soldiers  in 
Iram ;  that,  with  mock  mercy,  the  captain  per- 
mitted to  be  saved  in  order  that  its  owner  might 
direct  the  march  of  his  blind  band.  The  Vis- 
count of  Beziers,  a  nephew  of  Count  Raymond, 
a  gallant  youth,  when  he  was  offered  pardon, 
nobly  declared  he  would  rather  be  flayed  alive 
than  desert  the  least  of  his  subjects.  The  church 
had  no  place  for  the  generous  youth,  and  would 
allow  him  no  place  in  the  world.  He  died  in  a 
dungeon  at  the  age  of  twenty-four. 

Of  what  use  is  it  to  repeat  these  things?  Of 
what  use  to  open  the  grave  and  expose  the 
agonies  of  the  dead  long  buried  there?  It  is 
that  heroism  may  be  honored — a  heroism  no 
dangers  could  daunt,  no  terrors  could  appal,  no 
anguish  could  subdue. 

The  Albigensian  war  was  active  and  bitter 
more  than  forty  years.  It  dragged  along  nearly 

171 


MARTYRS  TO  FAITH 

a  century.  But  at  last  it  came  to  an  end.  The 
Albigenses  were  wiped  off  the  face  of  the  earth ; 
with  them  their  refinement,  their  music,  even 
their  sweet  language ; — the  language  of  love,  not 
of  war,  though  it  was  the  tongue  of  a  gallant 
people.  The  Troubadour  who  had  lived  through 
battle  and  siege,  pestilence  and  famine,  laid 
down  his  sword,  took  up  again  his  guitar,  and 
found  refuge  in  the  court  of  Aragon.  But  his 
fingers  and  his  brain  had  lost  their  cunning ;  his 
heart  was  broken.  So  powerful  and  so  deadly 
in  its  power  is  a  bad  government.  England  and 
France,  had  they  known  their  own  interests, 
would  have  reached  out  a  helping  hand  to  the 
persecuted;  instead,  they  answered  to  the  call 
of  the  persecutor.  While  putting  shackles  on 
free  thought  in  the  South,  they  riveted  the 
chains  that  already  bound  them  to  a  foregin 
power. 


No  man  knows  whether  Christian  doctrine  in 
its  purity  was  preserved  on  Alpine  heights  from 
the  time  of  the  apostles,  whether  it  was  carried 
to  the  mountains  by  Albigensian  fugitives,  or 
scattered  there  by  the  missionaries  of  Peter 

172 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

Waldus,  the  Lyonese  merchant.  Certain  it  is 
that  at  a  very  early  date,  before  Luther,  before 
Huss,  before  even  Wyclif,  Christianity  in  its 
pristine  simplicity  existed  in  these  remote  re- 
gions; that  when  the  light  was  removed  from 
Asia  and  was  quenched  at  Eome  it  still  burned 
on  the  tops  of  the  mountains  between  Italy  and 
France.  It  is  a  wild  and  dreary  region.  The 
hollow  roar  of  falling  waters  never  ceases. 
Every  stream  is  a  torrent  and  certain  death  to 
the  traveler  whose  unwary  foot  slips  on  its  edge. 
Avalanches  come  crashing  down  from  sky-reach- 
ing heights.  The  houses,  low,  small,  with  stones 
on  the  roofs  to  keep  the  roofs  from  blowing 
away,  look  like  ruins  or  heaps  of  stones,  not 
like  dwellings.  All  is  poverty  within,  and,  ex- 
cept in  the  few  short  weeks  of  summer,  all  is 
desolation  without.  If  anywhere  in  the  world 
men  might  live  in  peace,  unenvied  and  undis- 
turbed, that  spot  would  seem  to  be  in  the  Alpine 
regions  of  Piedmont.  But  no  place  is  so  poor, 
no  spot  so  sacred  that  malice  may  not  enter. 

The  Waldenses,  or  Vaudois,  as  they  are  as 
often  called,  at  an  earlier  date  than  is  known 
read  the  Bible  in  their  own  tongue.  Their  dili- 

173 


MARTYRS  TO  FAITH 

gence  in  studying  and  their  zeal  in  imparting 
the  Holy  Word  knew  no  restrictions.  They  car- 
ried it  hidden  in  bales  of  goods  when  they 
traveled  as  merchants,  and  sought  opportunities 
to  leave  it  in  castle,  palace  and  convent.  Whit- 
tier  makes  the  Vaudois  teacher  the  subject  of  a 
short  poem.  He  describes  the  Alpine  merchant 
as  selling  to  a  lady  silks  and  pearls,  then  de- 
claring that  he  has  a  wonderful  pearl  he  has 
not  yet  shown  her.  The  lady  has  lightly  turned 
away,  but  her  attention  is  arrested  and  she  says : 

"  'Bring  forth  thy  pearl  of  exceeding  worth,  thou  trav- 
eler gray  and  old— 

And  name  the  price  of  thy  precious  gem,  and  my 
page  shall  count  thy  gold.' 

The  cloud  went  off  from  the  pilgrim's  brow,  as  a 
small  and  meagre  book, 

Unchased  with  gold  or  gem  of  cost,  from  his  folding 
robe  he  took. 

'Here.  Lady  fair,  is  the  pearl  of  price,— may  it  prove 
as  such  to  thee! 

Nay,  keep  thy  gold— I  ask  it  not,  for  the  word  of  God 
is  free.' 

The  hoary  traveler  went  his  way,  but  the  gift  he  left 
behind 

Hath  had  its  pure  and  perfect  work  on  that  high- 
born maiden's  mind. 

And  she  hath  turned  from  the  pride  of  sin  to  the  low- 
liness of  truth 

And  given  her  human  heart  to  God  in  its  beautiful 
hour  of  youth, 

And  she  hath  left  the  gray  old  halls  where  an  evil 
faith  had  power, 

The  courtly  knights  of  her  father's  train,  and  the 
maidens  of  her  bower; 

174 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

And  she  hath  gone  to  the  Vaudois  vales,  by  lordly 

feet  untrod. 
Where  the  poor  and  needy  of  earth  are  rich  in  the 

perfect  love  of  God." 

And  this  is  no  fiction  of  the  poet.  Ladies  of 
high  degree  did  sometimes  (often  it  could  not 
be),  lay  aside  silken  robes  and  leave  lordly  halls 
that  they  might  study  the  Word  of  God,  and 
direct  their  lives  by  that  Word. 

Obedience  to  civil  law  the  Waldenses  held  to 
be  a  religious  duty.  When  they  could  not  pay 
taxes  regularly  on  account  of  the  disturbances 
of  war,  they  set  aside  money  to  be  ready  for 
payment,  although  none  but  harsh  and  incon- 
siderate rulers  would  have  required  taxes  from 
so  poor  a  people.  They  were  brave,  responding 
with  alacrity  to  every  summons  to  join  their 
sovereign's  army.  They  were  altogether  good 
subjects.  Yet,  notwithstanding  they  were  law- 
abiding  and  law-defending  men,  the  history  of 
the  Waldenses  during  nearly  three  hundred 
years  is  the  history  of  a  peaceable  and  intelli- 
gent people,  with  stern,  unswerving  faith,  now 
resisting  and  now  enduring  atrocious  persecu- 
tion. 

About  the  year  1400,  on  Christmas  day,  when 

175 


MARTYRS  TO  FAITH 

in  all  the  great  cathedrals  of  Christendom, 
cathedrals  that  are  poems  in  stone,  sacred  and 
solemn  poems  to  the  glory  of  God — when  in  all 
these  great  and  beautiful  churches,  choirs  were 
singing,  "Peace  on  earth,  good  will  to  men,"  the 
inhabitants  of  the  little  valley  of  Pragela,  in 
Piedmont,  were  flying  for  their  lives.  Through 
snow  and  bitter  winds  they  climbed  to  higher 
Alps,  pursued  by  cruel,  cursing  soldiers.  That 
night  while  Christendom  resounded  with  the 
praises  of  the  Babe  of  Bethlehem,  and  mothers 
in  happy  homes,  looking  in  the  innocent  faces 
of  their  little  ones,  wondered  not  that  the 
Saviour  of  the  world  took  the  form  of  an  infant 
— that  Christmas  night,  four  score  infants  per- 
ished with  the  cold.  When  morning  dawned, 
the  babies  and  their  mothers  lay  dead  together 
on  the  bleak  mountain.  Many  generations  of 
shuddering  parents  told  the  story  of  this  fearful 
night  to  their  shuddering  children;  and  the 
frozen  infant  lips  that  had  formed  no  earthly 
words  seemed  to  utter  words  of  heavenly  pa- 
tience and  faith. 

In  the  valley  of  the  Soyse,  the  inhabitants, 
three  thousand  in  number,  everyone  knowing 

176 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

how  to  read  and  write,  and  nearly  every  child 
able  to  give  a  reason  for  his  faith,  were  driven 
into  caves  and  smothered  by  fires  built  in  the 
entrances.  The  valley  that  had  been  filled  with 
happy  life,  and  had  hummed  and  sung  with  in- 
dustry, was  made  as  silent  as  the  grave.  The 
mill  and  the  cottages  fell  to  ruin.  The  little 
gardens  and  fields,  wrested  with  almost  super- 
human toil  from  the  cruel  rock,  went  back  to 
waste  and  desert.  No  human  sound,  nothing 
but  the  ceaseless  babble  of  water  broke  the  still- 
ness. Not  an  inhabitant  was  left  in  the  valley. 
During  a  fiercely  fought  battle,  the  women 
and  the  children  kneeling  on  the  rocks  in  the 
sight  of  both  parties,  lifted  up  their  hands  and 
voices  and  besought  the  aid  of  Heaven.  The 
Lord's  ear  was  not  deaf,  nor  his  arm  shortened. 
He  inspired  the  defenders  of  hearth  and  home 
and  faith  with  a  might  and  skill  they  never 
before  had  known.  They  sent  their  arrows  with 
unerring  aim;  they  hurled  stupendous  rocks 
crushing  down  terrible  steeps.  At  last  a  fog, 
wrapping  the  hills  in  a  deeper  obscurity  than 
even  darkness,  brought  confusion  and  defeat  on 
the  intruders. 

177 


MARTYRS  TO  FAITH 

In  1655  an  edict  of  the  Duke  of  Savoy  com- 
manded the  inhabitants  of  all  the  valleys  and 
plains  and  mountain  slopes,  except  of  five  val- 
leys, the  names  of  which  were  given,  to  be  con- 
verted to  the  Holy  Catholic  Church  within  three 
days.  The  valleys  excepted  were  small,  already 
crowded,  and  far  up  the  Alps.  Snow  lay  in  all 
the  passes;  high  waters  covered  the  plains. 

It  was  midwinter,  the  season  the  persecutors 
generally  chose  for  their  cruel  work,  that  what 
man  might  leave  undone,  nature,  with  a  relent- 
less hand,  should  accomplish. 

The  Waldenses  could  not  escape  over  the  high 
waters  and  the  ice  to  some  friendly  land.  So 
they  turned  their  courageous  steps  to  the  re- 
gions of  eternal  snow.  They  were  followed  by  a 
force  of  fifteen  thousand  soldiers,  many  of  them 
Irish  Eomanists  who  had  taken  part  in  the  ter- 
rible massacre  of  1641 ;  that  massacre  of  which 
Green  says :  "Tales  of  horror  and  outrage,  such 
as  maddened  our  own  England  when  they 
reached  us  from  Cawnpore,  came  day  after  day 
over  the  Irish  Channel/' 

The  bestial  and  fiendish  pursuers  followed  the 
flying  Vaudois  into  caves  and  dens.  No  pen 

178 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

may  write,  no  voice  may  tell,  the  horrors  they 
enacted.  The  mountain  echoes  were  of  mingled 
sighs,  cries  and  curses.  The  mountain  streams 
were  red  and  choked  with  blood. 

To  far  Protestant  shores  the  story  was 
wafted.  The  heart  of  England  was  "moved 
more  than  with  a  trumpet." 

Milton  spoke  for  his  countrymen  when  he 
cried  out  in  impassioned  strains  for  vengeance : 

"  Avenge,  O  Lord,  thy  slaughtered  saints,  whose  bones 
Are  scattered  on  the  Alpine  mountains  cold; 
Even  them  who  kept  thy  truth  so  pure  of  old, 
When  all  our  fathers  worshiped  stocks  and  stones 
Forget  not:    In  thy  book,  record  their  groans 
Who  were  thy  sheep,  and  in  their  ancient  fold 
Slain  by  the  bloody  Piemontese,  that  rolled 
Mother  with  infant  down  the  rocks!    Their  moans 
The  vales  redoubled  to  the  hills,  and  they 
To  heaven.    Their  martyr'd  blood  and  ashes  sow 
O'er  all  the  Italian  fields,  where  still  doth  sway 
The  triple  tyrant;  that  from  these  may  grow 
A  hundredfold,  who,  having  learnt  thy  way, 
Early  may  fly  the  Babylonian  woe." 

Never  was  Oliver  Cromwell  greater  than 
when  his  lion-heart  kindled  with  pity  for  his 
poor  brethren  of  the  Alps.  He  wept.  He  ap- 
pointed a  day  of  humiliation  and  prayer.  He 
sent  money — two  thousand  pounds  from  his 
own  purse,  a  larger  sum  collected  from  the 
churches.  He  refused  to  sign  a  treaty  with 

179 


MARTYRS  TO  FAITH 

France  until  the  French  king  had  promised  pro- 
tection to  the  Vaudois.  He  directed  his  Latin 
secretary  to  write  for  help  to  all  the  Protestant 
states  of  Europe.  He  sent  an  ambassador  to 
threaten  with  war  the  Duke  of  Savoy. 

This  ambassador,  Sir  Samuel  Morland,  ad- 
dressed the  Duke  in  the  bold  spirit  of  the  Lord 
Protector.  Specifying  some  of  the  cruelties  that 
had  been  committed,  he  broke  off  in  the  midst 
with,  "What  need  I  mention  more?  If  all  the 
tyrants  of  all  times  and  ages  were  alive  again, 
they  would  be  shamed  to  think  they  had  devised 
nothing  but  what  might  be  esteemed  mild  and 
humane  in  comparison  with  these  actions. 
Meantime,  angels  shudder,  men  are  angered, 
heaven  itself  seems  to  be  astonished  with  the 
cries  of  dying  men,  and  the  very  earth  to  blush, 
being  discolored  with  the  blood  of  so  many  in- 
nocent persons.  Do  not  Thou,  0  most  high 
God,  do  not  Thou  take  that  vengeance  which  is 
due  to  such  enormous  crimes.  Let  thy  blood,  0 
Christ,  wash  away  this  slaughter !" 

The  impassioned  address  was  heard  in  silence, 
and  the  letters  the  ambassador  delivered  were 
received  in  submission.  A  stop  was  thus  for  a 

180 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

time  put  to  open  persecution.  But  it  is  only 
within  the  present  generation  that  the  Vaudois 
have  been  allowed  to  send  their  children  to 
school,  and  to  have  equal  rights  with  the  Catho- 
lic citizen. 

What  fidelity  is  that  which  through  centuries 
of  persecution,  on  bleak  and  wind-swept  rocks, 
cut  off  from  the  abode  of  helpful  men,  could 
still  hold  fast  to  the  truth !  The  Truth— 

"  Life  of  whate'er  makes  life  worth  living1, 
Seed-grrain  of  high  emprize,  immortal  food, 
One  heavenly  thing,  whereof  earth  hath  the  giving." 

It  is  impossible  to  say  what  the  state  and  the 
Italian  church  have  lost  by  refusing  the  services 
of  the  best  members  of  both  church  and  state. 
The  world  has  gained  an  eternal  example  of 
steadfastness,  of  moderation  and  of  purity,  a 
richer  legacy  to  humanity  than  all  the  gifts  of 
conquerors,  kings,  or  scholars. 


The  last  of  the  three  peoples,  whose  story  I 
am  telling,  lived  in  a  remote  Austrian  province, 
lying  on  the  northeastern  slope  of  the  Tyrol 
mountains.  Salzburg  is  celebrated  for  its 
beauty.  It  is  beautiful,  with  a  wild  airy  grace, 

181 


MARTYRS  TO  FAITH 

peculiar  to  Alpine  regions.  Through  the  swift 
Salzach  and  other  rushing  mountain  streams, 
it  sends  its  tribute  from  glacier  and  from  crys- 
tal lake  to  the  Danube.  Its  rugged  rocks  give 
stingy  foothold  in  cracks  and  crannies  or  on 
some  lofty  bit  of  plain,  to  forests  of  fir,  to  free, 
upspringing  larches  and  to  gigantic,  solitary 
chestnuts ;  and  they  nourish  the  softest  mosses, 
and  the  most  lustrous  flowers.  In  the  valleys 
and  on  the  acclivities  are  sweet  clover,  blue- 
bells, crocuses,  pansies  that  might  be  the  nurs- 
lings of  a  city  gardener ;  wild  thyme,  called  by 
the  peasants  the  Virgin  Mary's  flower,  that 
gives  out  under  the  mountain  climber's  foot,  re- 
freshing, invigorating  odors.  Far  up  the 
heights  is  the  forget-me-not,  with  almost  im- 
palpable petals  of  heaven's  own  blue,  and  the 
Alpine  rose,  a  celestial  red.  Higher  yet  is  the 
brown  brunella,  with  its  patient  foot  in  the 
snow,  and  still  higher  is  the  edelweiss,  which 
the  chamois  hunter  proudly  puts  in  his  hat  as 
a  boast  of  the  dangers  he  has  dared. 

The  province  derives  its  name  from  its  salt 
mines.  It  is  a  citadel  of  rock  salt.  Vast  mines 
with  white  pavements,  white  walls  and  white 

182 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

ceilings,  with  winding  passages  and  high  wide 
halls,  sparkle  in  the  light  of  lamps,  burning 
forever  where  day  never  comes,  and  resound 
with  hammer  and  chisel,  or  the  hollow  roar  of 
blasting  powder,  where  no  noise  of  the  outside 
world  ever  penetrates.  Vast  caverns  perforate 
the  hills  with  black  chambers  where  never  ray 
of  sun  or  lamp,  and  never  sound  of  life  reaches. 
It  is  in  one  of  these,  according  to  the  story,  that 
fiery  Barbarossa,  locked  in  the  chains  of  an 
enchanted  sleep,  awaited  the  long  delayed  res- 
toration of  German  unity;  waited  till  his  red 
beard  grew  through  the  marble  table  that  sup- 
ported his  head. 

As  I  said,  Salzburg  was  formerly  an  ecclesias- 
tical sovereignty.  Its  Archbishops,  in  peace, 
ranked  with  kings,  and  in  war  figured  with  gen- 
erals. The  inhabitants  were  chiefly  peasants, 
obedient  and  peaceable,  but  accustomed  to  wrest 
their  subsistence  from  the  cruel  rock;  to  go 
down  to  awful  depths,  and  up  to  dizzy  heights ; 
to  stand  face  to  face  with  death  above  and 
below;  they  were  also  thoughtful,  self-reliant, 
fearless  and  true.  Hardship,  toil,  struggle, 
alone  may  break  the  spirit  of  men,  but  when 

183 


MARTYRS  TO  FAITH 

they  are  united  with  danger,  form  the  soul  of 
man  to  freedom.  The  time  has  been  when 
liberty  found  no  shelter  in  all  the  world,  but  in 
the  mountains  of  the  Swiss,  and  behind  the 
dikes  of  the  Dutch. 

The  mountaineers  and  the  miners  of  Salz- 
burg pondered  on  the  teachings  of  the  Bible 
given  to  them  either  by  the  Waldenses  or  by 
the  disciples  of  Huss.  They  contrasted  the 
lowliness  of  Jesus  with  the  loftiness  of  the 
Archbishop  and  his  priests.  They  sought  and 
found  a  more  excellent  way  than  was  sought  or 
found  by  the  lords  and  scholars  of  the  empire, 
and  this  in  spite  of  cord  and  stake  and  pool  and 
dungeon. 

During  three  centuries  their  history  bears  a 
general  resemblance  to  that  of  the  Wal- 
denses. 

After  a  tempest  of  persecution  for  one  genera- 
tion, or  two  or  even  three,  they  lived  quietly, 
observing  ecclesiastical  forms;  then  zealous 
missionaries  discovered  heresy,  and  persecution 
recommenced.  They  were  driven  into  exile, 
while  their  children  were  locked  up  in  convents 
and  brought  up  as  nuns  and  monks. 

184 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

About  the  year  1700  the  Archbishop  flattered 
himself  that  the  word  of  God  was  rooted  out 
of  the  land.  But  as  if  carried  by  winds  and  by 
birds,  the  seed  again  grew  in  the  remotest  nooks, 
on  apparently  inaccessible  heights ;  in  stillness, 
without  teacher  or  preacher,  new  communities 
built  themselves  up. 

They  met  at  night  in  the  depth  of  forests, 
and  while  sentinels  stood  on  the  outskirts,  they 
dug  from  the  earth  their  beloved  Bibles  and 
read  and  prayed.  When  the  rocks  walled  them 
about  and  they  were  high  above  traitor  and  spy, 
they  even  indulged  in  a  song. 

At  length  inquisitors  discovered  that  the 
peasants  neglected  to  make  use  of  a  greeting 
prescribed  by  the  Pope,  with  the  promise  of  two 
hundred  absolutions  from  purgatory  for  every 
utterance  on  ordinary  occasions,  and  two  thou- 
sand years  for  its  use  on  the  death  bed. 

Following  up  this  clue  as  indicative  of  dis- 
belief in  purgatory,  the  inquisitors  were  satisfied 
that  heresy  was  alive.  The  Archbishop  in  wrath 
declared,  "I  will  clear  the  heretics  out  of  my 
land,  if  I  have  nothing  left  but  thorns  and 
thistles." 

185 


MARTYRS  TO  FAITH 

On  the  last  day  of  October,  1731,  he  issued  a 
proclamation  to  the  purport  that  the  heretics 
must  leave  the  country  within,  eight  days,  with 
the  exception  of  property  holders,  who  might 
have  a  respite  of  three  months.  Of  course  sales 
could  be  made  only  on  the  terms  of  the  pur- 
chaser and  many  a  land  owner  was  forced  to 
abandon  house  and  ground,  worth  from  five 
thousand  to  fifteen  thousand  dollars.  Many  a 
one  left  a  hundred  cattle  standing  in  his 
stables. 

The  early  winter  had  already  whitened  the 
land,  when  the  exiles,  staff  in  hand,  set  out  on 
their  pilgrimage.  They  came  down  from  the 
mountains,  out  from  the  valley,  up  from  the 
mine,  from  under  the  very  walls  of  the  Arch- 
bishop's palace,  thirty  thousand  in  number. 
They  themselves  were  amazed,  and  their  princes 
were  astounded.  But  the  latter  did  not  relent. 
With  streaming  eyes  and,  it  is  said,  with  groans 
and  cries,  the  exiles  looked  their  last  on  their 
beloved  fatherland.  But  we  may  well  believe 
that  not  one  of  the  sad-hearted  throng  would 
have  laid  by  his  dusty  shoes  and  taken  up  his 
residence  in  the  palace  of  his  persecutor. 

186 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

With  slow  and  melancholy  movement,  the 
broken  procession  of  pilgrims  and  wanderers, 
passed  out  of  Austria,  into  reformed  and  mod- 
ern Germany.  At  once  the  wonderful  train 
became  a  triumphal  procession.  Bells  sent  forth 
peals  of  welcome.  Cottagers  stood  by  the  road- 
side and  showered  blessings.  Princes  opened 
the  doors  of  their  palaces  and  offered  their 
warmest  seats,  their  softest  beds.  Preachers 
made  the  exiles  the  theme  of  pulpit  discourse. 
Preachers  and  laymen  alike  were  inspired  to 
lead  holier  lives.  "Where  shall  they  go  ?  What 
shall  be  done  with  them?"  were  questions 
promptly  answered.  George  Second  of  Eng- 
land offered  them  homes  in  America.  The 
English  Society  for  Promoting  Christian 
Knowledge,  besides  making  large  remittances 
to  Germany,  sent  over,  from  1733  to  1735, 
more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  of  the  exiles 
to  the  English  colony  in  Georgia,  where  they 
settled  by  themselves  at  Ebenezer,  on  the 
Savannah. 

Our  country  boasts  noble  blood,  but  the  Puri- 
tans of  New  England,  the  Huguenots  of  the 
Carolinas  and  of  New  Jersey,  the  Quakers  of 

187 


MARTYRS  TO  FAITH 

Pennsylvania,  have  not  a  more  heroic  history 
than  have  the  Tyrolese  of  Georgia. 

All  the  kings  and  states  of  northern  Europe 
offered  homes,  but  no  sovereign  was  so  able  to 
give  a  convenient  and  accessible  asylum,  as  was 
the  king  of  Prussia.  Frederic  William  did  not 
lose  his  opportunity.  Harsh  he  might  be,  and 
was,  to  his  skeptical  and  wayward  children,  but 
he  was  gentle  and  generous  to  those  who  suf- 
fered for  a  principle.  Moreover,  he  was  a  prac- 
tical man  and  saw  in  this  sudden  expulsion  of 
the  best  peasants  of  Austria,  a  means  of  re- 
cuperating Lithuania — a  Prussian  province, 
which  had  of  late  years  been  ravaged  and  dev- 
astated by  pestilence — three  hundred  thousand 
people  having  died  of  disease  and  famine,  fifty- 
two  towns  and  hundreds  of  thousands  of  acres 
having  gone  to  waste.  He  sent  commissioners, 
therefore,  to  look  up  Salzburgers,  now  wander- 
ing in  the  cold  uplands  of  Bavaria,  or  still 
streaming  out  of  the  borders  of  Austria,  and  to 
invite  them  to  homes  in  Lithuania.  He  di- 
rected that  those  who  accepted  his  invita- 
tion should  move  in  small  bodies  by  different 
routes,  and  he  needlessly  exhorted  all  German 

188 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

princes  to  be  kind,  and  "not  hinder  them  and 
me." 

In  the  cold,  raw  days  of  February,  one  of  the 
first  companies  of  the  refugees,  three  hundred 
and  thirty-one  in  number,  moved  towards  the 
little  town  of  Nordlingen  in  Bavaria,  there  to 
await  the  Prussian  commissary.  The  towns- 
people, led  by  their  two  chief  clergymen,  went 
out  to  meet  them,  finding  them,  men,  women 
and  children,  with  their  ox  carts  and  baggage 
wagons,  awaiting  in  the  open  fields,  an  invita- 
tion to  the  town.  "Come  in,  ye  blessed  of  the 
Lord,  why  stand  ye  without?"  said  one  clergy- 
man in  words  of  Scripture,  for  no  mere  human 
words  seemed  fitting.  The  strangers  followed 
into  town,  and  into  the  church,  where  one  of  the 
clergymen  addressed  them  from  the  text :  "And 
everyone  that  hath  forsaken  houses,  or  brethren, 
or  sisters,  or  father,  or  mother,  or  wife  or  chil- 
dren, or  lands  for  my  name's  sake  shall  receive 
a  hundred  fold,  and  shall  inherit  eternal  life." 
The  other  from  the  verse :  "Now  the  Lord  hath 
said  unto  Abraham,  'Get  thee  out  of  thy  coun- 
try, and  from  thy  kindred,  and  from  thy  father's 
house,  unto  a  land  that  I  will  show  thee." 

189 


MARTYRS  TO  FAITH 

What  preaching  that  must  have  been!  The 
word  of  Christ  and  the  living  example!  Here 
were  men  that  knew  the  pleasures  of  accumula- 
tion, the  pride  of  possession,  yet  had  forsaken 
houses  and  lands;  who  felt  cold  and  hunger 
like  any  other,  yet  had  given  up  fire  and  shelter 
and  food ;  whose  hearts  loved  like  other  human 
hearts,  yet  had  turned  away  from  friend  and 
kindred. 

The  blessed  words  from  the  pulpit  comforted 
the  pilgrims;  and  inspired  the  citizens,  who 
stood  lovingly  around,  with  yet  more  eager  de- 
sire to  act  the  part  of  generous  hosts. 

Wittenberg — the  Wittenberg  of  Luther,  of 
Shakespeare's  Hamlet,  of  Marlowe,  and  of 
Goethe's  Faust;  the  cradle  of  the  Reformation, 
the  nurse  of  the  New  Learning,  the  Mecca,  the 
Rome  and  the  Jerusalem  of  the  Reformers  of 
the  sixteenth  and  the  seventeenth  centuries — 
the  little  old  town  of  Wittenberg  remembered 
its  name  and  its  fame  when  the  strangers  ap- 
proached its  gates.  It  was  on  a  Saturday  after- 
noon, the  third  of  May.  Through  their  narrow 
and  crooked  streets  the  Wittenbergers  poured. 
They  took  their  stand  on  the  banks  of  the  Elbe, 

190 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

and  there,  in  solemn  expectation,  they  waited. 
Just  before  the  sun  set,  at  half  past  six,  a  cloud 
of  dust  arose  from  the  south.  Emerging  from 
the  cloud  came  a  motley  throng  such  as  Goethe 
describes  in  the  little  idyl,  Hermann  and 
Dorothea — families  and  fragments  of  families, 
stretching  from  hill  to  hill,  beyond  the  reach 
of  the  eye.  All  were  on  foot,  except  a  few  aged 
and  sick,  who  were  divided  among  eleven 
wagons  laden  also  with  household  goods.  When 
they  had  crossed  the  river,  the  strangers,  their 
steps  adapted  to  their  weary  children's  feet, 
sang  the  trustful  old  German  hymn,  beginning, 
"All  is  well  that  our  God  does."  When  that 
was  ended,  still  moving  on,  they  struck  up 
Luther's  grand  psalm,  "A  great  stronghold  our 
God  is  still." 

The  university  students,  at  least  a  thousand 
in  number,  falling  into  line,  added  their  clear 
young  voices.  The  lofty  solemn  strains  rose 
and  swelled  through  the  listening  streets  as 
the  exiles  marched  calmly  on,  and  the  towns- 
people wept  tears  of  passionate  pity. 

One  day  the  pilgrims  gave  to  rest  in  the 
town  of  sacred  memories,  then  they  again  took 

191 


MARTYRS  TO  FAITH 

up  the  line  of  march.  Seven  hundred  miles 
more  brought  them  to  the  gates  of  Berlin,  where 
royalty  in  the  persons  of  the  Prussian  king  and 
queen  honored  itself  by  meeting  them  and  giv- 
ing them  welcome.  Five  hundred  more  long 
miles,  and  the  wanderers  found  their  new  coun- 
try. Cottages  and  fields,  stock  and  implements 
of  husbandry  were  all  ready  for  them. 

Under  the  industrious  hands  of  the  new  set- 
tlers the  waste  blossomed,  flocks  whitened  the 
hillsides,  towns  grew,  trade  flourished.  Lithua- 
nia became  the  garden  spot  of  Prussia. 

As  for  Salzburg,  the  beautiful  mountain 
land  that  had  been  robbed  of  her  noble  off- 
spring, her  glory  departed  with  her  honest 
peasants.  Her  farms,  her  villages  and  her 
mines  fell  to  ruin.  The  thorns  and  thistles  the 
Archbishop  preferred  to  heresy  yielded  so  poor 
a  revenue  that  the  state  was  unable  to  resist 
the  encroachments  of  Austria,  of  Bavaria  and 
of  Napoleon,  and  it  sank,  after  eleven  hundred 
years  of  magnificence  as  a  principality,  into  a 
meager  and  impoverished  dependence. 

Like  their  predecessors  and  contemporaries 
in  the  government  of  heretics,  the  Archbishops 

192 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

sacrificed  their  country  to  narrow  and  bitter 
prejudice.  Austria,  we  might  think,  had  re- 
ceived a  lesson  she  would  remember.  Contigu- 
ous to  Salzburg,  and  on  the  west,  is  the  wide  and 
lovely  valley  of  the  Ziller — the  Zillerthal,  the 
pride  of  Tyrol,  with  its  meadows  and  fields,  its 
beautiful  white  villages,  farm  houses  and  man- 
sions, and  its  churches  with  their  slender  spires, 
so  in  harmony  with  the  mountain  scenery. 
From  this  peaceful  valley  were  driven  out  in 
1838,  after  eight  years'  persecution,  between 
four  hundred  and  five  hundred  of  the  hand- 
some, happy  peasantry,  among  the  most  intelli- 
gent and  industrious  of  Austrian  subjects.  Two 
hundred  of  them  were  property  holders.  They 
carried  with  them  into  Prussia,  which  again 
offered  shelter  and  home,  not  only  their  indus- 
trious and  upright  characters,  but  fifty  thou- 
sand dollars,  although  they  left  as  much  more 
due  them  in  their  native  valley. 

Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  devotion  of  the 
Catholic  church  to  its  principles,  of  the  self- 
abnegation  of  associations  and  of  individual 
members,  and  much  may  and  ought  to  be  said 
of  these  things;  as  a  church  it  certainly  has 

193 


MARTYRS  TO  FAITH 

to  bear  a  sad  and  guilty  burden  of  persecution. 

It  is  to  this  unstatesmanlike  and  unchristian 
persecution  that  we  owe  the  story  of  the  Albi- 
genses,  the  Waldenses  and  the  Salzburgers. 

While  that  lives,  who  shall  doubt  that  the 
soul  of  man  is  akin  to  God  ? 


194 


SOME  THOUGHTS   ABOUT  SOCIETY 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  he  who  can  have 
the  select  society  of  all  the  centuries  should  be 
satisfied  without  any  other.  And  it  is  true  that 
a  library  has  certain  advantages  over  actual 
living  association.  Books  cost  little,  compara- 
tively. They  can  be  handled  without  gloves, 
without  finery.  They  require  no  etiquette,  no 
conventionality.  You  may  stand,  you  may 
walk,  you  may  sit,  you  may  recline  carelessly 
and  enjoy  the  company  of  the  greatest.  You 
may  be  candid  to  the  utmost  extent  of  candor 
without  causing  offense.  You  may  be  effusively 
delighted  without  exciting  a  suspicion  of  flat- 
tery. 

It  is  true  that  the  best  society  and  the  most 
accessible  may  be  found  in  a  library.  Here  the 
solitary  and  the  sorrowful,  the  disappointed  and 
the  erring,  the  betrayed  and  the  deserted,  the 
unthanked  benefactor,  the  young  who  are  sensi- 
tive to  the  limitations  of  poverty,  the  old  who 
have  neglected  to  repair  their  friendships,  the 

195 


SOME  THOUGHTS  ABOUT  SOCIETY 

slow  who  have  been  left  behind,  the  weary,  the 
over-burdened,  may  find  company,  solace, 
stimulus.  It  is  true,  also,  that  the  happy  and 
the  strong  may  find  in  the  library  increase  of 
happiness  and  strength.  But  it  is  also  true  that 
the  bright  creations  of  genius  cannot  fill  the 
place  of  living,  warm  human  beings — even  to 
the  scholar,  even  to  the  poet  who  in  his  library 
weaves  with  his  own  the  thoughts,  the  dreams, 
the  fancies  of  his  intellectual  equals. 

That  lonely  man  "whose  soul  was  like  a  star 
and  dwelt  apart,"  in  his  age  and  poverty  and 
blindness,  in  the  desertion  of  friends  and  the 
contempt  of  foes,  felt  that  the  climax  of  his 
sorrow  was  the  deprivation,  or  limitation,  of 
intercourse  with  his  kind.  He  says : 

"Not  to  me  returns 

Day  or  the  sweet  approach  of  even  or  morn, 
Or  sight  of  vernal  bloom,  or  summer's  rose, 
Or  flocks,   or  herds,   or  human  face  divine; 
*   *   *    from  the   cheerful  ways   of   men 
Cut  off." 

Addison's  old-fashioned  hero,  Sir  Koger  de 
Coverley,  has  little  resemblance  to  Milton  ex- 
cept in  his  love  of  humanity.  Let  me  recall 
Addison's  description  of  Sir  Roger  at  the 
theatre : 

196 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

"As  soon  as  the  house  was  full  and  the 
candles  lighted,  my  old  friend  stood  up  and 
looked  about  him  with  that  pleasure  which  a 
mind  seasoned  with  humanity  naturally  feels 
in  itself  at  the  sight  of  a  multitude  of  people 
who  seem  pleased  with  one  another  and  partake 
of  the  same  common  entertainment." 

Can  we  not  see  that  honest  old  face  beaming 
with  benevolence? 

Human  nature  stands  on  a  substratum  of  love 
in  spite  of  the  fret  and  fury  of  the  untoward 
circumstance.  The  baby  in  his  cradle  quivers 
with  delight,  his  fingers  and  his  toes  begin  to 
curl  and  play  at  the  sound  of  another  baby's 
voice.  What  is  prettier  than  a  child  of  four  or 
five  years  absorbed  in  contemplation  of  another 
child,  lips  apart,  eyes  unwinking,  head  fixed  in 
its  pose? 

All  through  the  seven  ages  the  passion  for 
association  with  his  kind  reigns  over  the  heart. 
Standing  forlorn,  like  a  sentinel  left  to  guard 
the  outpost  of  a  vanished  army,  the  aged  man 
finds  comfort  in  the  tender  presence  of  a  little 
child.  With  gentle  patience  and  equal  pity 
they  both  await  the  broadening  of  their  twi- 

197 


SOME  THOUGHTS  ABOUT  SOCIETY 

light  into  day.  A  Timon  seeks  solitude  and 
curses  his  kind  only  because  his  heart  is  lacer- 
ated by  ingratitude.  His  hate  is  the  reverse 
side  of  love.  A  mediaeval  saint  lives  forty  years 
in  the  desert  because  humanity's  first  and  last 
passion  is  extinguished  by  a  morbid  selfishness 
that  would  save  his  own  soul  if  all  the  world 
were  lost. 

If  a  man  love  God  he  must  love  his  brother 
also.  On  this  love  is  founded  civilization.  The 
word  civilization  means  the  art  of  living  to- 
gether. When  this  useful  art  becomes  a  fine 
art,  civilization  passes  into  society.  Apply  the 
tests  by  which  poetry,  the  first  of  the  fine  arts, 
is  tried,  and  see  how  far  the  figure  holds 
good. 

"Poetry  is  the  language  of  perfect  discre- 
tion," is  Lowell's  rather  curious  definition.  "It 
is  the  breath  and  finer  spirit  of  all  knowledge," 
says  Wordsworth.  "It  is  the  accent  of  high 
beauty  and  power,"  says  the  critic  Arnold. 

In  its  substance  and  matter  is  the  high 
seriousness  which  comes  from  absolute  sincerity. 
It  has  a  constant  union  of  simplicity  with 
greatness  and  something  besides  that  words  can- 

198 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

not  define,  that  analysis  cannot  detect,  an  inter- 
fusing, subduing,  uplifting,  charming  power 
that  only  concrete  examples  may  show.  Ideally, 
society  is  the  poetry  of  civilization,  therefore  it 
is,  that  society  is  the  finest  thing  the  mere  world 
affords. 

"Evenings  like  these  are  worth  a  pilgrimage," 
said  Lady  Dunstan  after  a  dinner  with  Diana 
of  the  Crossways.  Amiel,  the  Swiss  scholar, 
writes  of  an  evening  of  social  intercourse: 
"There  was  not  a  crease  in  the  rose  leaf.  Let 
us  hail  as  an  echo  from  Heaven  these  brief  mo- 
ments of  perfect  harmony ." 

It  must  be  acknowledged  that  society  does  not 
often  reach  this  perfect  harmony.  Why  ?  Is  so 
much  required?  Yes;  much  is  required  and 
must  be  interwoven  with  the  nature,  so  inter- 
fused into  the  very  blood  as  to  become  an 
integral  part  of  the  whole.  Why  is  it  that 
society  so  seldom  attains  to  this  perfect  har- 
mony? It  is  because  of  the  imperfections  of 
individuals  who  constitute  society  and  of  the 
homes  on  which  it  rests. 

American  society,  like  the  American  state, 
is  especially  individual.  Yet  it  presents  a 

199 


SOME  THOUGHTS  ABOUT  SOCIETY 

singular  anomaly,  inasmuch  as  individualism, 
if  it  mean  originality,  is  rare.  The  self  pre- 
served in  its  integrity  throughout  a  full  and 
natural  development,  in  all  its  simplicity  and 
yet  with  the  complexity  of  high  and  fine  culti- 
vation, is  the  individualism  that  may  and  must 
exist  in  good  society.  To  be  oneself  is  to  be 
brave.  It  requires  thought  to  have  convictions, 
and  courage  to  hold  them ;  to  have  and  to  hold 
are  not  always  the  same.  For  the  latter,  a  cer- 
tain strength  of  grasp  is  necessary,  and  not  only 
distinctness  and  fixedness  are  essential,  but  a 
certain  alertness,  a  tactful  recognition  of  the 
variety  in  harmony. 

"Why  dawn't  thee  letten  Mrs.  Grundy  alone," 
says  farmer  Ashfield  to  his  wife.  "I  do  verily 
believe  when  thee  goest  to  t'other  world  the 
vurst  question  thee'll  ax  '11  be  if  Mrs.  Grund/s 
there." 

The  question,  "What  will  people  say  ?"  is  the 
knell  of  courage,  and  the  soul  without  courage 
has  neither  truth  nor  beauty. 

Good  sense  and  common  kindness  are  essen- 
tials of  society.  Of  course  every  sensible  per- 
son uses  every  opportunity  for  gaining  knowl- 

200 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

edge  and  for  drawing  wisdom  from  knowledge. 
"Knowledge  comes,  but  wisdom  lingers."  Good 
sense  shuts  out  every  sort  of  eccentricity — for- 
wardness, backwardness,  loud  talk,  self-con- 
sciousness, too  much  of  a  thing,  too  little  of  a 
thing.  Good  sense  knows  the  Golden  Mean. 
Good  sense  keeps  clear  of  all  affectation,  all 
artificiality,  all  desire  for  effect.  It  preserves 
the  individuality,  originality,  selfhood.  A  kind 
of  politician  known  a  half  a  century  ago  was 
called  a  "dough-face."  Good  sense  forbids  the 
dough-face  in  society.  Each  man  must  do 
his  own  thinking.  None  must  be  ashamed  when 
there  is  no  cause  for  shame,  proud  when  there 
is  no  reason  for  pride.  Therefore,  society  re- 
quires courage,  but  a  courage  that  may  be  yoked 
with  lamblike  gentleness.  Society  is  soft  and 
smooth,  smiling  and  graceful.  It  is  so  kindly 
that  it  is  almost,  not  quite,  caressing.  Pains- 
taking is  still  another  element.  Some  one  said 
to  Charles  James  Fox,  who  was  carving  at  a 
dinner  table  with  his  usual  ease,  grace  and 
precision,  "How  does  it  come  that  you  do  so 
many  things  and  such  different  things  so  well  ?" 
"It  is  because  I  am  a  very  painstaking  man," 

201 


SOME  THOUGHTS  ABOUT  SOCIETY 

said  Mr.  Fox.  "I  put  a  book  beside  me  when 
I  first  carved  and  studied  the  art." 

In  all  games  of  skill  Fox  excelled.  In  ora- 
tory none  came  near  him,  except  Pitt  and 
Burke.  In  conversation,  he  was  above  all.  It 
might  almost  be  said  that  no  man  excelled  him 
in  anything.  Without  something  of  this  genius 
for  taking  pains,  society  as  well  as  the  indi- 
vidual, is  unfinished  and  slovenly.  "Self-love 
is  not  so  vile  a  sin  as  self-neglecting/'  says  the 
wisest  of  the  uninspired.  Individuality  is  to  be 
preserved  at  every  cost,  and  friendship  is  too 
noble  and  too  sacred  a  thing  to  be  played  with. 
Yet  one  should  not  be  too  particular  or  too 
laborious.  Among  the  thousand  good  things  in 
Mrs.  Browning's  "Love  Letters,"  I  find  the  fol- 
lowing: "Lord  Bacon  did  a  great  deal  of 
trifling  besides  the  stuffing  of  the  fowl,  *  *  * 
and,  in  fact,  all  the  great  work  done  in  the 
world  is  done  just  by  the  people  who  know  how 
to  trifle.  *  *  *  When  a  man  makes  a  prin- 
ciple of  never  losing  a  moment,  he  is  a  lost  man. 
Great  men  are  eager  to  find  an  hour,  not  to 
avoid  losing  a  moment." 

Some  think  there  is  a  preservative  in  ex- 

202 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

clusiveness.  To  me  it  is  ridiculous,  almost  ser- 
vile. Of  course,  one  must  choose  one's  friends 
and  associate  with  the  congenial.  But  to  catch 
up  our  skirts,  toss  back  our  heads  and  turn  a 
scornful  face  is  unbecoming,  to  say  the  least. 
As  I  pass  through  Indianapolis,  north  and 
south,  east  and  west,  and  see  the  hundreds  and 
hundreds  of  pleasant  homes,  of  pretty  children, 
of  fine-looking  men  and  women,  I  often  recall 
Shenstone's  sigh  when,  looking  over  the  map 
of  England,  he  exclaimed,  "How  many  pleasant 
people  are  here  whom  I  shall  never  know." 

Continued  growth  or  improvement  is  a  law 
of  the  individual,  consequently  of  society. 
Without  growth  there  is  no  life.  Living  things 
<7rott',dead  things  decay.  "The  good  die  young," 
is  often  said;  say,  rather,  "The  young  die 
good."  It  is  not  the  early  spring,  but  the  late 
summer  that  disfigures  the  earth  with  thistles, 
nettles  and  other  noxious  weeds.  Every  one 
who  has  had  long  observation  of  life  and  litera- 
ture knows  how  great  may  be  the  change,  how 
complete,  in  the  progress  of  years,  may  be  the 
transformation  of  character  as  well  as  of  ap- 
pearance. A  great  artist  made  a  pair  of  con- 

203 


SOME  THOUGHTS  ABOUT  SOCIETY 

trasting  paintings — "Innocence"  and  "Guilt" — 
an  interval  of  twenty-five  years  having  elapsed 
between  the  two.  Unawares,  he  had  painted 
two  portraits  of  the  same  individual.  Inno- 
cence had  become  guilt.  Is  that  not  enough 
to  frighten  one? 

"Death  is  not  the  worst  thing,"  said  a  wise 
old  lady  to  me  when  I  had  partially  excused 
Victor  Hugo's  glorification  of  a  lie.  "Death 
is  not  the  worst  thing."  No,  it  is  not.  Some- 
times it  is  better  to  die  than  to  live.  After  they 
have  reached  a  certain  maturity,  men  and 
women  who  have  hitherto  felt  a  measure  of 
anxiety  and  responsibility  for  themselves  too 
often  fold  their  hands,  and,  with  satisfied  eyes, 
view  and  review  the  shortcomings  of  their 
neighbors.  The  arch  enemy  of  humanity  seizes 
the  luckless  moment  and  drops  into  the  un- 
guarded soil  the  seeds  of  envy,  jealousy  and  all 
unrighteousness.  When  a  woman  finds  herself 
calculating  that  such  and  such  an  attention 
will  bring  her  or  her  children  into  notice,  will 
be  an  advantage  in  some  way  to  her  or  hers, 
it  is  time  for  her  to  beware.  She  is  entering 
the  cave  of  petrifaction  whence  there  is  no 

204 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

egress  to  the  free  airs  of  heaven.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary to  be  a  member  of  any  special  circle,  but 
it  is  necessary  to  preserve  one's  integrity  of 
soul. 

The  very  seat  and  center  of  all  life  is  the 
heart,  and  it  is  the  heart  that  is  earliest  neg- 
lected and  most  persistently  left  out  of  the  reck- 
oning. Now  and  then  we  see  a  man  with  fine 
powers,  fine  education,  fine  opportunities,  frit- 
ter his  precious  life  away  in  trivial,  futile, 
passing  interests.  Without  a  clear  perception 
of  the  distinction  between  right  and  wrong  the 
man,  it  is  true,  may  go  sadly  astray.  The  sense 
of  right,  with  the  courage  to  put  it  into  word 
and  conduct,  is  grit,  is  granite.  No  one  is 
respectable  without  it,  no  one  is  disreputable 
with  it.  Still,  it  is  not  the  moral  sense  I  mean 
here,  but  the  feeling  heart. 

Hawthorne,  in  some  respects  the  embodiment 
of  the  puritanism  he  abjures,  is  the  great 
American  teacher,  his  lessons  gently  flowing 
through  parable  and  allegory,  or  cutting  and 
burning  in  direct  precept.  The  sum  of  his 
teaching  is:  "The  heart — the  heart.  Purify 
that  inward  sphere  and  the  many  shapes  of  evil 

205 


SOME  THOUGHTS  ABOUT  SOCIETY 

that  haunt  the  outward,  and  that  now  seem 
almost  our  only  realities,  will  turn  to  shadowy 
phantoms  and  vanish  of  their  own  accord ;  but 
if  we  go  no  deeper  than  the  intellect,  and  strive 
with  merely  that  feeble  instrument  to  discern 
and  rectify  what  is  wrong,  our  whole  accom- 
plishment will  be  a  dream." 

It  is  common  to  see  the  mind  cultivated,  the 
manners  guarded,  the  health  nursed,  the  dress 
cared  for,  the  heart  ignored.  It  is  said  of  one 
of  the  most  learned  of  women  that  she  has  abso- 
lutely no  sense  of  natural  ties — the  holy  ties 
that  Shakespeare  calls  "too  intrinse  to  un- 
loose;" that  she  has  none  but  a  philosophic 
idea  of  the  gentle  and  self-abnegating  emotion 
of  love.  History  records  of  the  most  intel- 
lectual family  that  ever  lived,  a  family  whose 
rise  is  ranked  among  the  four  great  events  of 
the  century  that  invented  printing  and  dis- 
covered America,  that  it  was  as  lacking  in 
heart  as  it  was  abounding  in  mind.  A  great 
gulf  may  lie  between  mind  and  heart.  He 
whose  aim  in  life  is  to  build  himself  up  widens 
and  deepens  this  gulf.  He  rises,  and  the  society 
that  accepts  him  is  pulled  down  by  his  weight. 

206 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

"There  is  nothing  on  earth,"  said  Luther,  "so 
sweet  as  the  heart  of  a  woman  in  which  pity 
dwells."  The  tenderness  that  softens  the  fiery 
eye,  that  subdues  the  fervor  of  the  voice,  that 
withdraws  out  of  sight  and  out  of  mind  con- 
sideration for  self — this  compassion,  to  use  the 
scriptural  word,  this  fine  sympathy  it  is  that 
makes  it  possible  to  have  such  a  social  evening 
as  Amiel  describes.  In  the  really  great  soul, 
simplicity  and  sincerity  dwell  by  the  side  of 
lowliness  of  mind. 

We  all  may  name  examples  of  individuals, 
coming  within  our  own  observation,  that  form 
good  society,  and  still  more  examples  that  we 
have  met  in  our  reading.  Burke  said  of  Mrs. 
Delany  that  she  was  the  best  bred  woman  in 
Europe.  He  might,  perhaps,  have  left  the  word 
"bred"  out  and  said  only  "best,"  she  was  so 
good.  One  smiles  to  read  Mrs.  Barbauld's 
notice  of  Joanna  Baillie :  "I  saw  her  at  church 
looking  as  innocent  as  if  she  never  had  written 
a  line."  Mrs.  Edgeworth  says  of  Scott:  "He 
is  one  of  the  best  bred  men  I  ever  saw,  with  all 
the  exquisite  politeness  which  is  of  no  particular 
school  or  country,  but  which  is  of  all  coun- 

207 


SOME  THOUGHTS  ABOUT  SOCIETY 

tries ;  the  politeness  which  rises  from  good  and 
quick  sense  and  feeling,  which  seems  to  know 
by  instinct  the  character  of  others.  As  I  sat 
beside  him  I  could  not  believe  he  was  a  stranger 
and  forgot  he  was  a  great  man. 

Two  years  ago,  in  California,  I  spent  a  week 
in  the  house  of  an  old  lady  of  ninety  years 
She  had  seen  many  vicissitudes.  Born  in  Eng- 
land, educated  there  in  a  boarding  school,  and 
spending  there  her  early  married  life,  she  had 
later  lived  in  Wisconsin  on  a  great  farm  that 
required  to  be  cleared,  and  had  then  drifted 
to  the  Pacific  coast,  where,  lately,  she  ended  her 
days.  Every  evening  at  eight  o'clock  she  would 
take  the  hand  of  her  devoted  daughter,  and, 
turning  to  each  of  us  with  a  little  curtsy  and 
a  kindly  smile,  would  bid  us  good  night  and 
wish  we  might  sleep  well.  She  could  not  forget 
the  manners  of  a  refined  society,  even  though 
the  enfeebled  memory  compelled  her  to  say, 
"Ellen,  what  are  the  names  of  my  sons?" 

Among  the  advantages  possessed  by  the  young 
mothers  of  early  days  in  Indianapolis  was  the 
acquaintance  and  friendship  of  one  who  had 
had  so  wide  and  varied  an  experience  that  at 

208 


THE  MAN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

forty  or  fifty  she  was  regarded  and  always 
spoken  of  as  old.  "Old"  Mrs.  McDougall  has 
lain  in  her  grave  many  and  many  a  year,  but 
her  stately  figure,  her  gracious  manners,  her 
wise,  witty,  humorous,  intelligent,  altogether 
charming  discourse,  will  never  be  forgotten  by 
even  the  child  who  had  the  good  fortune  to 
know  her.  She  chatted  as  genially  with  a 
laundress  over  methods  of  washing  and  starch- 
ing and  about  early  reminiscences  as  with  the 
general  or  clergyman  or  the  traveled  lady  who 
sought  her  company,  no  touch  of  condescension 
in  the  one  case,  no  hint  of  self -consciousness  in 
the  other.  She  was  interested  in  humanity  at 
large  and  in  little.  She  was  a  queenly  woman 
with  experience,  advice  and  luminous  anecdote 
at  the  service  of  her  young  neighbors.  "It  is 
pleasant  to  be  grateful  even  to  the  dead,"  says 
Lowell.  Between  that  day  and  this  many  a 
woman  of  whom  any  circle  at  any  time  might  be 
proud  has  spent  her  sweet  and  modest  life  in 
Indianapolis,  and  made  her  home  the  home  of 
the  virtues  and  the  graces. 

After  all,  it  is  the  home  next  to  personal 
character  that  is  of  import  in  our  making  and 

209 


SOME  THOUGHTS  ABOUT  SOCIETY 

maintaining  a  lofty  and  refined  atmosphere. 
If,  for  the  sake  of  society,  the  home  is  neg- 
lected or  deserted,  society  is  no  longer  a  bless- 
ing, nor  is  it  even  a  joy.  The  individual  pre- 
serves his  mental  integrity  by  doing  his  own 
thinking  and  maintaining  a  sense  of  justice  and 
candor.  The  home  stands  upon  a  foundation 
of  peace,  is  built  up  by  purity  and  love,  is 
illumined  by  innocent  gayety,  is  warmed  by 
tender  sympathy,  is  strengthened  by  wide  in- 
telligence. Society  must  have  these  same  ele- 
ments— peace,  purity,  love,  gayety,  S3rmpathy, 
intelligence.  Into  the  soul  we  cannot  look. 
In  the  home  we  may  not  pry.  One  is  secret,  the 
other  sacred.  Of  society,  we  have  a  right  to 
demand  that  it  be  open  to  inspection,  even  in 
its  motives. 

Simplicity,  with  the  kind  of  greatness  that 
everybody  can  have,  the  greatness  that  means  a 
heart  large,  yet  too  small  for  anything  that  is 
base,  is  a  mark  for  good  society  and  a  pillar  for 
its  support.  "The  longer  I  live,"  says  Ten- 
nyson, "the  more  I  value  kindness  and  sim- 
plicity among  the  sons  and  daughters  of  men." 


210 


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